At the Cost of A Penny
by ravenr1r2r3
Summary: Five dead. Four kidnapped. Three unlikely teammates. Two organizations. One diabolical mastermind. S.H.I.E.L.D. has recruited the help of Sherlock Holmes, Dean Winchester, and the Doctor in order to stop the destruction of the universe, but at what cost?
1. Taking the Initiative

**Warning: no seriousness was put into the making of this fic. Seriously. This would have never left the safety of my notebook if it weren't for the insistence of my friends. With that, special thanks to my betas, Izzy Dixon and RedRibbonsGirl, for keeping these characters in line.**

* * *

**Taking the Initiative**

* * *

"Could we make this quick? I'm very busy, very busy."

"I understand." Director Nick Fury watched the strange man leaf through one of the hundreds of stacks of paper that crowded the apartment. "Believe me, this is important. I assume you are aware of the events that took place in New York and Greenwich?"

"Of course I am," he retorted. "Aliens? Pah! Nothing but rubbish. Don't tell me that this is the 'important business' you came to discuss with me, because I have better uses for my time than to listen to any more intergalactic nonsense."

Fury ground his teeth, checking his temper. Clearly this guy was teetering on the edge. The frantic movements as he rifled through files and books, the desperation in his darting eyes, and over a hundred other panicked idiosyncrasies showed how close he was to a mental breakdown. If Fury was to get what he came for, he'd have to remain cool.

"I hate to burst your bubble," he said, "but aliens are very real."

Uttering a noise between a growl and a scoff, the man rounded on the Director and said, "If that is all you wish to discuss with me, then you can see yourself out." Then he dismissed Fury with a flippant gesture and resumed his digging, muttering to himself as he did so.

Fury didn't bat an eye. "I have proof."

"I don't care about the poorly constructed laser beam or ion cannon or whatever ridiculous device you obviously built in your—"

_CLUNK!_

A large misshapen chunk of metal landed on the desk in front of his nose. The man glanced up at the object for a moment, analyzing it, and then glanced away.

"Clearly aluminum."

"Is it?"

The tone in Fury's voice made him pause. He looked back up at the metal, spotting the bluish sheen for the first time.

Hiding a smirk, Fury watched the man jump up and whisk the metal into the make-shift lab that was the kitchen. He waited patiently as the metal was thoroughly examined, scraped, dunked in different chemicals, burned, re-examined, and then examined again.

The result:

"Alright, what is it?"

Fury allowed himself a small, self-satisfied chuckle just to piss the guy off and plucked what remained of the metal from the man's hand. "We don't know," Fury admitted. "Came off one the ships that attacked New York."

Standing a little taller so he towered over the Director, the man narrowed his piercing blue eyes at Fury as if to pry away his secrets with just a look.

"Why are you here?" he rumbled suspiciously.

Bouncing the alien material in his hand, Fury met the man's stare evenly. "I've heard a lot about you. Your ability to know everything about a person at first glance is unparalleled, and you have an almost 100% success rate.

"Mr. Holmes, I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative."

* * *

"Not interested."

Coulson set his beer on the table. "Sir, I know you're going through a tough time—believe me, I get it—but at least take a moment to consider—"

"There's nothing to consider." The drunkard belched loudly. "I'm not joining your Power Rangers squad."

"Avengers."

"Whatever. Count me out."

Coulson felt his patience wearing thin. He was never good at the art of subtle manipulation like Hill or Romanov, but this was the true test of his abilities as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

_I knew I should've brought May,_ he thought to himself. Too late now.

Coulson leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands. "Look, Mr. Winchester—"

"—No please, call me Dean," he said gesturing with his beer. "Mr. Winchester was my old man."

"Ah yes, John Winchester. Son of Henry Winchester, who mysteriously vanished when John was a boy, though I suspect that's not the whole story."

"How do you know about that?" Dean demanded, eyes suddenly sharp and alert.

Coulson smiled. "I know a lot about you, Dean, and your companions. More than you think."

* * *

"How is that possible?" he asked in a hushed whisper.

Agent Hill shrugged. "Rumors mostly. Believe me, you're not the easiest person to track down."

The man—or at least, she's assuming it's male—tapped his foot nervously and ran a hand through his spikey mouse-brown hair. His whole being vibrated with a nervous energy, like he really needed to cut back on the espressos. Poor thing must be terrified out of his mind.

Hill decided to fall back on the simplest yet most effective tool in her repertoire.

"Sir," she began, "I understand that you're distressed—"

"Distressed?" he shouted, going from anxious to borderline-hostile in under two seconds. Hill's hand shot to the gun at her hip. "_Distressed?_ Y-y-y-y-you—No! Don't pretend to know how I feel, okay? Because you don't!"

"Actually, I do." The words left Hill's mouth before they were even a thought. She wasn't exactly sure where they came from, but she rolled with it. "I know exactly how you feel. Losing someone, it's not easy."

He inhaled sharply. "How do you know about . . . ?"

"Like I said, rumors mostly. But then we got a name and the rest is hist—oh, sorry. . . ."

"S'okay . . ." he muttered then glanced her way. "So . . . who did you lose?"

She blinked. "A dear friend of mine," she replied, "but you know what?" Hill took a step forward and put a hand on his arm. "He wasn't gone for long. I found him again and S.H.I.E.L.D. can find your friend, too. With your help."

The man hesitated. The nervous energy from before fled his body all at once, leaving behind a weary sort of sadness. He sighed heavily and looked up at Agent Hill with a modicum of hope in his eyes.

"Can you really find Rose Tyler?" asked the Doctor.

* * *

Dean erupted into a fit of laughter.

"You think _I_ need_ your_ help?" he snorted. "Please! I've been fightin' on my own since I was in diapers. What've _you _been doin' all your life? Drivin' limos?"

"You're really not getting it, are you?" Coulson said. "I have access to information on everyone and everything in the entire world. Cult groups, secret organizations—you name it, we can find it."

Dean snorted again and downed the rest of his beer before standing and walking towards the tiny kitchen. "Thanks," he said, dunking the beer bottle in the trash, "but no thanks. I don't trust you government types. The door's over there."

Sighing, Coulson stood and walked to the door. "Alright," he said. "If you're sure about this, I won't waste any more of your time."

"Alrighty then. See you never."

Just as he was about to leave, Coulson paused under the doorway. He turned back and said, "I know the supernatural is real, Mr. Winchester. I've seen it with my own eyes. That's why I find it easy to believe that you and your brother are demon hunters and your friend is an angel. What I _do _find hard to believe is that you aren't trying to use whatever means necessary to find out who took them."

And with that, Coulson left, closing the door behind him.

Well, almost.

A large hand stopped the door inches away from being shut. Not even mildly startled, Coulson turned.

Dean glowered at him from the narrow opening.

"I am NOT wearing spandex," he said.

* * *

They were at an impasse. Sherlock, still not convinced, regarded the Director suspiciously and said, "If you know so much, what do you need me for?"

"Helps to have a fresh set of eyes," Fury replied. "That and most of my best men are currently occupied with . . . other things."

"I see . . . Well, as _fascinating_ as this all sounds, and I mean that in the loosest sense of the word, I'm afraid I am also currently occupied with a case that requires my undivided attention and I can't spare any time running around with your team of Power Rangers."

"Avengers."

"Whatever."

"On the contrary, Mr. Holmes," Fury said, ignoring the jibe, "you have the exact amount of time for both, because our case _is_ your case. More or less."

Sherlock scowled. "What do you mean?" he demanded.

"Just that. We're after the same people, so wouldn't it make sense to join forces? Help each other out?"

"Who says I need your help?"

Casting his eye about the messy apartment and the X-ed out pictures tacked up on the wall, Fury scoffed. "No offense, Mr. Holmes, but you're way out of your element here."

Sherlock glanced down at the chunk of metal in Fury's hand and, rolling his eyes, said, "You're not _seriously_ proposing that _aliens_ are involved?"

The Director didn't reply. Instead, he pocketed the metal and folded his arms.

"I'm only going to say this one more time," Fury said. "Join our group. Without S.H.I.E.L.D. you will never find these people, but S.H.I.E.L.D. can and will find them without you, even if it takes a little more time. However, time is of the essence, Mr. Holmes. The longer we take tracking these people down, the more lives will be in danger.

"Including that of your friend, John Watson."

Sherlock twitched involuntarily, and Fury knew he struck a nerve. Good, now they were getting somewhere.

Keeping his voice under control, Sherlock huffed and said, "Alright, fine. I'll play along for a little while. But the moment I suspect this is going nowhere, I'm leaving."

Fury smiled. "Agreed. If we're done here, I have a car waiting outside."

"Hold on," Sherlock said, taking a step forward. "If you know who took John, then tell me."

The Director held the door open for him. "I'll explain everything once we meet up with the others."

"Others?"

"I did say Aven_gers_, didn't I? Congratulations, Mr. Holmes. As of today, you get new playmates."

* * *

Somewhere beyond human reach, a man stood lost in the sea of his own memories. Staring out the window of his cushy bedroom, the man slowly pulled a black glove over the red sleeve of his lab coat. To his right, a pair of black goggles sat on the nightstand.

A soft knock came at the door, followed by a gentle creak. Someone poked their head into the room.

"Sir?" he said. "The others are waiting for you. Are you ready?"

Without turning, the man replied, "Yeah. I'll be right there."

Another creak and the door closed with a click, leaving the man alone with his thoughts and the rising sun before him.

He pulled the goggles over his eyes.

"A brand new day. . . ."


	2. Meet the Team

**Hi hi hi! Sorry for the really late update; thanks to school and other such distractions, updates will be infrequent. However, I will write as much as possible and post as soon I can! Special thanks to everyone who Reviewed, Followed, and Favorited—it's greatly appreciated.**

**I own none of the characters in this story.**

**And with that, the story continues!**

* * *

**Meet the Team**

* * *

And so, the stage is set.

Our heroes consist of a consulting detective with nonexistent social skills, a smartass demon hunter with a drinking problem, and an emotionally unstable time lord with gravity-defying hair, all sitting at the conference table of a secretive organization's even more secretive helicarrier.

It's like the start of a bad joke.

There was a charged silence at the conference table. Not a word was spoken as the trio waited for Fury or Coulson or _anyone _to come and explain what was going on.

Upon completing his analytical one-over of his new "playmates", Sherlock glanced about the helicarrier, unimpressed. _A bit much for a base of operations,_ he thought, _almost silly_. The Doctor, too, was unimpressed by the helicarrier after spending most of his life on the TARDIS. Dean, on the other hand, was about as excited as a kid at Christmas. Not that he showed it of course, not with the others looking so nonchalant. Still, his fingertips itched to fiddle with the tantalizing buttons on one of the control pads, especially the big red ones that said DANGER. Only Sherlock had bothered to read through the large folder Fury had left for them, if you could call it reading. The detective had simply flipped the pages one right after the other in quick succession before closing the file and sliding it back to the center of the table.

That was half an hour ago.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents manning the helicarrier ignored them for the most part, which only added to Dean's growing boredom. Twice he tried to hit on a female agent; twice he wasn't even spared a passing glance. Even the Doctor and Sherlock were growing restless.

Finally, Dean couldn't take it anymore.

"So," he said, "giant flying ship. Crazy, huh?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Dean gave him a pointed look. "What? Don't tell me you're not the _least_ bit psyched about being on a spaceship."

"First of all," Sherlock said, "this is not a spaceship as we are clearly not in space and second of all, if you _must _fill the silence, at least fill it with something more intelligent."

Dean squared his jaw. Turning to the Doctor, Dean threw his thumb over his shoulder at Sherlock and said, "Who pissed in _his_ bitch flakes this morning?"

"Please don't drag me into this," said the Doctor.

Sherlock shot Dean a cold look, "Why are you even here? What could you possibly have that's of any relevance to this case?"

"A lot more than you," Dean retorted.

"Could I have a biscuit?" the Doctor asked a passing agent. "Or at least some tea? No? Okay. . . ."

"So what do you do, huh?" asked Dean. "From the ego, I'd guess a psychiatrist or a lawyer or something that makes a crap ton of money."

"A consulting detective, actually," Sherlock said. "How much is a 'crap ton' anyway?"

"Woah, woah, woah. Detective? You walk around like the queen of England yet all you are is Detective-freaking-McGruff?!" Dean burst into laughter. "HA! That's rich!"

A vein throbbed in Sherlock's temple. "This coming from the _boy_ who runs around playing superhero with his little brother. I highly doubt that pays well, if at all."

Dean's laughter abruptly cut off as his jaw went slack. "How do you know about my brother?"

"Oh, it wasn't hard really. Judging from the look in your eyes—" he gestured to Dean and the Doctor "—you've both lost someone recently, one of the key reasons we were chosen to begin with. You come off as a real ladies' man so I doubt you would have that look over a lover so my guess is a close relative, most likely a sibling. 'But how did you know it was a _younger brother_?' you wonder. Ah, now _that's _the trickier part. First I sort out the sibling's gender, which brings me back to your promiscuity. Men who grow up in a house with at least one sister tend to have more respect for the female gender, something you clearly lack.

"As for whether your brother was younger or not, that was just a lucky guess. At first I was inclined to believe you were the younger sibling, however you wear the same expression as someone else I know. I usually don't go by such things but I figured it was worth a try."

"Yeah?" Dean said tightly. "And who do I remind you of?"

"No one important," Sherlock replied flippantly. "Oh, that's another similarity you both share."

The Doctor's eyes darted between the hunter and the detective. _Maybe if I excuse myself to go to the loo, _he thought to himself,_ I can disappear before things get out of hand. . . . _

"I'll have you know," Dean said, angrily waggling a finger at the detective, "that I fight monsters for a living—a thankless job, might I add—so that people like you can walk about without being maimed by things like demons and vampires and psychotic unicorns."

_Too late._

"Vampires?" Sherlock scoffed. "Demons? You must be incredibly stupid to think I would believe that nonsense. It's all rubbish."

"Oh yeah?" Dean rolled up his sleeve and revealed a nasty scar that arced from his elbow to the underside of his forearm. "Got this sucker from an _acheri_. And this—" he tugged down the collar of his shirt. "—came from a drunk leprechaun. True story. Now THIS," Dean lifted up his shirt and twisted around to show a scar that snaked from the small of his back around to an inch under his belly button, "this I'm actually a little proud of. Not entirely sure how I got it though, but I'm pretty sure there was a witch involved. But the all-time freakiest scar of them all would be this bad boy right here—"

"That's enough!" Sherlock said before Dean had a chance to remove his shirt completely. "You're a reckless fool who's been in many dangerous situations, we get it. That still does not prove the existence of these fairy tales. Next you'll be telling me that aliens are real too."

The Doctor, his back now ramrod-straight, scowled at Sherlock. "What do you have against aliens?!"

"Nothing, because they're not real. They exist only in the minds of overweight middle-aged men who still live in their parents' basement."

"Wha—?! They are completely real!" the Doctor said. "Believe me, I know better than anyone."

"In your delusions, perhaps. But here in the real world, there is no such thing as aliens. I will repeat this one last time for the more simple-minded in the audience, _there is no such thing as aliens or monsters._"

"That's it." Dean leapt across the table and grabbed at Sherlock. The Doctor, caught in between the two, shot to his feet and just barely missed catching a blow from Dean's grabbing hands.

When Director Fury and Agent Coulson finally showed up, they found Dean with a firm grip on Sherlock's coat collar while the Doctor tried to pry them apart. Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose and another agent, who was wheeling in a large glass board, watched with jaw dropped as papers flew about the area in the wake of the pair's brawl.

"Take it back you son of a bitch!"

"Never!"

"TAKE IT BACK!"

"NO!"

A vein throbbed dangerously in Fury's right temple. He pulled a gun from the inside of his coat and fired one shot into the air. Everyone on deck took cover. Sherlock and Dean froze mid-strangle while the Doctor dropped to the floor. When no more shots followed, the Doctor poked his head over the table and snapped, "Are you out of your _bleeding_ mind?! That could've ricocheted!"

"They're blanks," Fury said frankly as he put the gun in its holster. "This is the special gun I use to get morons like you three to shut up. Now sit _down._"

The three immediately fell into their seats. Fury huffed. He had hoped that this would be simpler than managing the original Avengers, but clearly that wasn't going to happen. As if reading his mind, Coulson leaned in and whispered, "With all due respect, sir, I'm not dying again. Just thought I would put that out there."

Fury sighed and stepped forward. "Now that we've got that out of our systems, we can get on to the briefing."

Dean burst into a fit of childish giggles. Fury almost threw them all off the helicarrier. Instead he inhaled deeply, mentally counted to ten, and gestured to his subordinates. One pressed a button and the glass sprang to life with several blue images covering the screen. Dean was one part excited and one part disappointed. (He had hoped for a holographic projection.) Fury dismissed the underlings and opened a file on the screen. Five images popped up.

Sherlock's eyes lit up.

_Male. Thirty-one. Japanese. Clean-shaven. Works in an office. Unmarried, but starting out in a relationship, most likely someone from work. Near-sighted, but refuses to wear his specs. _

_Female. Forty-nine. Irish, but lives in America. Pre-menopausal. School teacher—no, a headmaster. Recently divorced with no intention of getting into another relationship. _

_Male. Twenty-three. Australian. Just out of Uni. Currently unemployed, undoubtedly swimming in student loans. Single. _

_Male. Nineteen. American. Drug-dealer. In and out of prison for at least three years. Wouldn't hurt a fly._

_Female. Twenty-two. British. Single. Waitress—oh . . ._

Slowly leaning back in his chair, Sherlock put his hands together and rested his fingertips on his lips. Dean glanced his way and wondered if he was praying.

"Six weeks ago," Fury said, "these five died under only mildly mysterious circumstances. All died in different parts of the world, with the exception of Jeremy Keatley and Brigid Quinn—" he pointed to the nineteen year old American and the forty-nine year old Irishwoman. "—who died in different areas of the United States. There is nothing connecting the five deaths in anyway, except for this."

With one swipe of the finger, the pictures slid off-screen and were replaced by an image of a bloody red splotch, followed by pictures of the dead bodies. The three men simultaneously narrowed their eyes at the splotch—it had enough shape to be an imprint of some kind but was distorted enough for the image to be unclear. In some ways, it looked like a badly smudged paw print.

Coulson turned to the group. "This is only reason the victims were put on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar in the first place. The bodies were found torn apart, mostly at the throat, in locked rooms. There was no evidence of a break-in or a struggle, and only one paw print was left at the scene. . . . Is there a problem, Mr. Winchester?"

Dean snapped to attention. "What? Why?"

"Your face was all twitchy and you wouldn't sit still."

"Not to mention you kept grumbling under your breath," the Doctor added.

"Oh." _Well this is awkward. _"Nothing. ADHD acting up."

"You don't have ADHD," muttered Sherlock.

Dean turned a cutting glare at Sherlock. "And how the hell could you _possibly _know that?"

Nick reached for his "Shut up" gun and everyone fell quiet. Coulson looked at Dean. "If you have an idea to share, then please share it. We're all ears."

Everyone turned to Dean and waited for a response. Dean opened his mouth, promptly closed it, and then scratched his head. To stall for time, he asked, "How old is the kid there?"

"Nineteen."

Dean waved a hand. "Never mind. Not possible."

"In my experience," Fury said, "it isn't wise to disregard the 'impossible'."

Expectant eyes fell on Dean again. He swallowed. Sometimes he really hated talking to normal people. _Sam always knew what to say_, he thought then immediately back-tracked. _Just do it quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid. _With a sigh, Dean folded his arms and said frankly, "I think it's a hellhound."

The Doctor's eyes widened. Coulson and Fury remained expressionless.

Sherlock started threw is hands in the air and rolled his eyes skyward. "Why am I not surprised?" he said.

"Now hang on, Mr. Holmes," Fury said, holding up a hand to Sherlock. "Hear the man out before you write him off. This is a team effort—remember that."

Clearly irritated, Sherlock clenched his jaw and gestured for Dean to continue. A bit more confident—if not smug—Dean sat up straighter. "Hellhounds are invisible to the human eye and can go anywhere they want undetected, which would explain why there was no evidence of breaking-and-entering. They usually go for the throat; I've seen this," he said gesturing to the gory images, "a thousand times . The only problem I have is that paw print. I've never seen a hellhound leave something behind—besides a body of course."

"Then what makes you think this is impossible?" Coulson asked.

"Hellhounds only come after people who've sold their soul," Dean replied. "Usually those deals have a ten year grace period; I doubt nine year olds are going around making deals with demons."

Coulson turned to Fury. "What do you think, sir?"

Fury looked at the agent from the corner of his eye and replied, "I'm not ready to rule out anything just yet, so this is worth considering."

Dean shot a victorious glance at Sherlock, who shot a cold one right back. The Doctor quietly slid his chair slightly away from them.

"There is one more thing," Fury said before they got out of hand again. "One of the agents I had working on this case went missing investigating the latest murder."

"What happened to him?" the Doctor asked.

"Her," Coulson corrected. "Agent Wrotham was found a week later ten thousand miles away from where we lost her signal. Let's just say the only way we were able to ID her was through her dental records, and even that was sketchy."

The Doctor swallowed.

"Her last transmission was short. She knew she was being hunted, but by what, we don't know for certain. Whatever it is, it's not human."

Sherlock's brow furrowed at this. Dean and the Doctor, however, were not fazed in the slightest.

"That's where you three come in," Fury said. "You will investigate the circumstances surrounding the five victims' deaths, find out who is responsible, and return with any and all information you can find.

"You were chosen because you all specialize in the strange and the unexplainable. Work together on this and you will succeed. I'm counting on you."

* * *

It was dark when Sam finally woke up, though he wished he hadn't. A bloody, metallic taste filled his mouth, his lip hurt . . . hell, his everything hurt. With a groan, Sam forced his protesting joints to push his body off the cold, hard ground.

Slowly the past couple of hours started to come back to him. Two anonymous tips, claiming they found a suspect in two completely different locations; Dean going to one while Sam searched the other; an empty doctor's office; a sudden blow to the head. . . . Cas might've been there—

Oh God.

"Cas," Sam rasped. _"Cas!"_

"Here . . ." came the weak reply. Sam almost collapsed with relief. He wasn't alone after all.

"Where are you?" Sam said. "I can't see a thing."

"Over here." There was a twinge of pain in the angel's voice.

Frowning, Sam asked, "Can you walk?"

". . . . No," Cas replied tightly, as if irritated by his circumstance. "I can't move." Dread crept into Sam's heart. Whoever was responsible for this was able to subdue an angel.

_One thing at a time, Sam_, he thought to himself. "Sit tight, pal. I'll come to you."

Castiel grunted in response.

Steeling himself, Sam painstakingly pushed himself to his feet. He flinched as a scab on his leg broke with each movement. Once he was upright, Sam scanned the darkness hoping to make out Cas's form through the gloom. No such luck.

"Could you shed a little light on the subject?" he asked.

Quiet.

"Cas?"

"I can't," the angel said. "My powers . . ."

Sam fought the rising panic. "They're gone?!"

Castiel exhaled slowly. "No, not gone. I just . . . I can't reach them. My head hurts."

"Okay then. You'll just have to guide me to you. . . . You _can_ see right?"

". . ."

"Cas?"

The angel sighed. "No, I can't."

Sam huffed and said, "That's okay, I'll just come to you."

Cas snorted. "And how to you propose you do that? If _I _can't see in this darkness then I know for a fact you can't."

"Your confidence in me is overwhelming as always."

"You're welcome."

Taking a deep breath, Sam squinted. He had been in thousands of dark places before and yet for some reason his eyes refused to adjust. _You know,_ a nagging little voice in the back of his mind said, _Dean always gets himself out of situations like this. Think, Sam—what would Dean do?_

"Cas," Sam said, suddenly getting an idea. "Marco."

No reply. Sam frowned and turned in a different direction.

"Marco!"

Still nothing.

"Cas! Where the hell are you?!"

"Right here," Cas said with a twinge of annoyance. "I haven't moved."

Sam swung around and, with arms outstretched, walked a bit faster towards Cas's voice. "Then why didn't you say anything?"

"My name is Castiel. I don't know who this Marco person is."

"Marco Polo. It's a game. Let's try again—Marco!"

". . ."

"_Cas!_"

"I'm not sure how to respond."

"Oh for the love of—"

Sam stumbled over something large and heavy, landing on his—apparently—sprained wrist. Sam cried out. Cas groaned in pain.

"You found me."

As Sam and Cas painstakingly pulled away from each other, a second groan echoed from across the room. They froze.

"Who's there?" Sam demanded.

"Hmnugh . . . Wuss goin' on? Where . . . where'm I . . . ?"

The voice was masculine, an older man by Sam's reckoning, and . . . Australian?

"Bloody hell, my head hurts. . . ."

British. Definitely British.

"Who are you?" Cas said.

"What's going on? Why are we here?" the man replied groggily.

"No clue," Sam said, ignoring the fact he dodged the question.

"Sam," Castiel whispered. "There's one other person in here."

"How can you tell?" Sam whispered back. "I thought you couldn't reach your grace."

"Not completely, but I can still sense things. There's a fourth person in here, over there."

Sam waited for a few seconds then rolled his eyes. "Cas, I can't see where you're pointing."

"Oh, right. Here." Cas fumbled for Sam's hand and, taking it, pointed it towards where the fourth person was lying. Wincing at the touch, Sam called out, "Is anyone else in here? Hello?"

A whimper sounded from the area Cas pointed him to. It didn't sound too far.

"Hey, are you hurt?" Sam asked earnestly. "Can you move?"

"I'm a doctor," the man said a bit more clearly.

The person groaned and rasped, ". . . D . . . Doctor . . .?"

Another Brit, this time a woman. Sam reached out and gripped Cas by the trenchcoat, growling, "Cas, can you tell if she's in trouble or not?"

"Aside from her not explicitly saying otherwise, no."

"Then you need to get me over there."

"Why?"

Sam sighed impatiently. "Because she could be seriously hurt, Cas, and since we're all stuck in this hole together, the smart thing to do is look out for each other."

"Oh. Right."

Making sure that they brushed each other's sides at all times, Cas and Sam crawled over to the woman. Just as Sam thought, she wasn't too far from them—a mere six paces away. It was a miracle Sam didn't trip over her earlier. Cas placed Sam's hand on what he pretty sure was the woman's back. As it carefully trailed upward, Sam's hand met with matted hair with a smooth neck underneath. Sam rubbed his fingers together.

They were wet.

"D-doctor," croaked Sam. "She's bleeding."

Grunting echoed softly as the doctor pushed himself onto his hands and knees. In a dry but strong voice, he ordered, "Try to find the wound and put pressure on it. And keep talking; I'll be right there."

Sam, ignoring the pain in his wrist, gently flipped the woman onto her back and ran his fingers lightly over her face, all the while urging her to wake up. She whimpered, ". . . Doc . . . tor . . ." and he could feel her face twitch. Sam froze when his fingertips grazed a thick lump sitting just above the eyebrow. Must be a scab.

"Your grace would be really helpful right about now," Sam muttered to Cas. The angel said nothing.

"I'm here," the doctor said, coming up to the other side of the woman. "Did you find it?"

"Found a scab over her eye," Sam reported, "but nothing else yet. Do you have a lighter or something?"

"Hang on . . ."

No one spoke over the sound of quiet shuffling and the occasional swear. "Damn," he muttered once, "gun's gone." Woah, Sam hadn't even thought to check for his weapons until just then. He patted down his usual places—both his gun and knife were gone. Even the tiny pick he started keeping in his shoe was gone. He was almost surprised.

"Here!" Sam jumped at the doctor's victorious exclamation. Suddenly a small bead of light sliced through the gloom, blinding everyone. Sam swore and flinched away. When his eyes stopped burning, Sam lowered his hands and squinted at the doctor. He wasn't nearly as old as Sam thought he was, but his face was still haggard and worry-lined. The light made the lines sharper and his black eye more prominent. His clothes were dusty and the sleeve of his jacket was torn. All in all, the doctor looked like crap.

Not that Sam looked any better. The doctor's eyes were wide and fixed on Sam's face, his mouth parted a bit. _If I look worse than I feel_, Sam thought, _then I must look worse than hell._

To his credit, the doctor recovered quickly and shined the light—which Sam noticed was a tiny flashlight on a keychain—on the woman's face. Out of all of them, she probably looked the worst. Her blond hair was tangled and splayed about her pale face like a bloodied halo. The gash extended from the top of her left eyebrow up diagonally to the hairline, just barely missing the temple. It scabbed over, but not before dribbling blood all over the left side of her face and down her neck.

While Sam's still-addled brain was swimming at the sight, the doctor checked for more injuries and took the woman's pulse. "Not as strong as I would like it," he reported, "but she'll live. I can't find any breaks or other cuts."

Sam let out a sigh of relief then grew tense again. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

The doctor exhaled and said, "This is a kidnapping, I'm sure of it, but as to how or where or why, I haven't the foggiest."

"Great, so we're all in the same boat then." With a grunt, Sam readjusted himself into a sitting position and said, "I'm Sam Winchester, by the way. And this is Cas."

"John Watson. Nice to meet you."

Sam flinched. "Nice to meet you too, Watson."

"How long do you think we've been in here?" Cas asked.

John shined the light around the room. "Impossible to tell. There aren't any openings aside from those vents in the ceiling."

"Vents?" Sam looked up quickly and huffed in disappointment. The two vents that allowed air into the room were way too small even for the woman to fit through, let alone three grown men.

With a heavy sigh, Cas repositioned himself into a sitting position. "We better get comfortable then," he said, "because we're stuck here until someone gets us."


	3. Meet the Other Team

**Hi hi hi! **

**Thank you for your patience, though at this point our fandoms have pretty much mastered patience. (Sherlockians, I'm looking at you.) **

**Special banana-fudge sundaes to everyone who Followed/Favorited and Reviewed this story—it's very much appreciated.**

**As usual, if you recognize the name of the characters, then I don't own them. If I did, then you can bet your bottom dollar Dean wouldn't die (as often).**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Meet the Other Team **

"_So, where are we going to go first?"_

"_Umm . . ." He points. "That way. No hold on . . ." Brow bunched in thought, he scans the night sky carefully before pointing again. ". . . That way."_

_She points. "That way?"_

"_Nn?" He looks at her, questioning, like a child looking to his parents for confirmation that he chose well. She smiles._

"_Yeah. That way."_

_He beams. With a small laugh, the two turn their bright faces to the heavens, eager to begin their exciting new adventure, lost among the stars. . . ._

The Doctor jerked awake. He didn't recall falling asleep, but the dream he had still lingered. He knew that moment very well—that was the night Rose agreed to be his companion again, even though regeneration left him a completely different person.

It had been freezing cold that night, but never before had he felt so warm.

"Bad dream?"

The Doctor jumped. In the leather seat across from his, Dean sat with an ice-cold beer in one hand. The Doctor frowned and murmured, "Not quite. It was a good dream, but it left a bad feeling."

"Mmm. I know what you mean." Dean took a mouthful of his drink and followed the swallow with a satisfied "Ahh . . ."

The Doctor sat up slowly. Underneath his soles he could feel the soft _whrrr_ of the engine. This was his first time on an airplane, and so far the experience wasn't all that exciting. Strange, for sure, but not exciting.

After the meeting with Director Fury, Agent Coulson introduced the trio to Agent Shaw Harris, a graying man in his late forties, who in essence would act as the team's—

"Babysitter?" Dean said incredulously. "You're tacking us with a _babysitter?_"

"Not a babysitter," Coulson had assured. "Just additional team members hand-picked by S.H.I.E.L.D. to supervise the mission, provide back-up if needed, and inform you of the rules and procedures S.H.I.E.L.D. operates under. We do the same for any other new recruit."

"So a babysitter."

Coulson sighed.

After that, Agent Harris led the group to a hanger within the helicarrier and boarded a jet that Harris referred to as "the baby brother of the CXD 23 Airborne Mobile Command Station", whatever that meant. Just as Sherlock, Dean, and the Doctor were about to step on, Coulson pulled them aside and said, "Just as a last word of advice, the people you are about to meet are some of the best operatives we have and they're good people, honestly, but they've been a team for a while now so if they come off a bit defensive or paranoid . . . be patient with them."

"I love them already," Dean had quipped.

"You're not coming with us?" Sherlock asked.

Coulson smiled faintly and said, "I have my own team to get back to. Don't worry—you three will be fine."

The Doctor was a little sad to watch him go; he would have preferred to have a friendlier face on his team.

Speaking of unfriendly faces . . .

"Where did Sherlock run off to?" asked the Doctor. "How long was I asleep?"

"Not too long," Dean said. "Maybe an hour. As for tall, dark, and antisocial, he's making a quick call before we gather 'round for a little powwow with the rest of our group."

"Powwow?"

"Oh that's right, you didn't hear that last bit because you were out as soon as butt hit leather. Agent Harris gave us time to get acquainted with where we bunk for the night before have a meet-and-greet with the rest of the crew, which should be pretty soon."

The Doctor sat up straighter. "There's enough space on board for each of us to have our own room?" Was that even possible for a human aircraft?

Dean twitched. "Not exactly. The three of us newbies are stuck in a comfy little hole together while the secret agents have rooms to themselves. All of us have to share one bathroom though, so try not to spend so much time fixing your hair in the mornings."

"I hate to break it to you, mate," the Doctor said, running a hand through his spikey tresses, "but this? This is all natural. No fixing required."

Dean smirked.

_Ping._

"_All agents please report to the lab," _said Agent Shaw over the PA. _"All agents please report to the lab." _

"That's our cue." With a grunt, Dean pushed himself out of the seat and guzzled down the last of the beer, leaving the empty bottle on a small table. "Let's get this party started already so I can take a quickie before dinner. All this runnin' around's got me beat."

"I'll go get Sherlock," said the Doctor, "just in case he didn't hear that."

Dean snorted. "Leave him. I've had enough of his arrogant ass for one day."

"Hold on." The Doctor halted Dean before he walked off and looked him dead in the eye. "I know we all got off on the wrong foot earlier, but if we want to save our friends, we need to start working as a team instead of biting each other's heads off. One of you has to stop first or this whole thing will fall apart before it has a chance to begin."

Squaring his jaw, Dean met the Doctor's stare evenly and replied, "Since you missed the grand tour, the lab past those doors and through that glass door on the end. I'll meet you and Detective McGruff there."

Before the Doctor had a chance to open his mouth, Dean turned on one heel and left. The Doctor sighed through the nose. _So much for that. _

Finding Sherlock wasn't as difficult as the Doctor expected—he found the detective in front of the bathrooms, staring at the setting sun from a window as he spoke on the phone. Not wanting to interrupt, the Doctor waited just around the corner.

In a surprisingly gentle voice, Sherlock murmured, ". . . I can't tell you that either, I'm afraid. But don't worry, I'll find him before—" He paused, then laughed quietly. "Yes, I'm sure you would. . . . Yes . . . yes, I will. Take care of yourself, Mary. . . . Goodbye."

Sherlock hung up and turned, inhaling sharply when he saw the Doctor. He frowned. The dying light made the angles of his face sharper, more hollow.

"How long have you been eavesdropping?"

"Not long," replied the Doctor, matching the detective's neutral tone. "We need to join the others."

"So I've heard."

. . . .

"We should get going then. Wouldn't want to keep them waiting."

"Absolutely."

Neither moved, with not a sound between them save the muted hum of the engine. For all his talk of unity and cooperation, the Doctor still wasn't sure how he felt about his new compan—teammates, especially the consulting detective. Normally he could get a feel for a person's true nature pretty quickly; Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, was quite possibly the most closed-off person he ever met. It was evident that the man took pride in being cleverer than average people and used every opportunity to use his abilities, but other than the superiority complex, there was not much to be gleaned from the surly detective.

Then again, there was no denying the warmth in his tone only moments before.

The Doctor blinked.

". . . Okay then. I believe the lab is this way."

"After you, Doctor."

"With pleasure, Mr. Holmes."

The glass door closed with a _hiss_. Dean, Agent Harris, and two other individuals were already gathered around the main worktable sitting in the center of the lab. Sherlock's eyes roved hungrily over the monochromatic shelves lined with all sorts of scientific instruments and treasures. All of the experiments he could do—way more than what Mrs. Hudson allowed him to do back at Baker Street.

Oh yes, he could do business here.

"I see you're a man of science, Mr. Holmes," Agent Harris's voice cut into Sherlock's scientific—and possibly sociopathic—daydream. "Maybe if you ask nicely, our resident geniuses will let you have a look-see at some of their toys."

"I just might," Sherlock replied, mostly to himself.

Once the two stragglers filled the empty places around the table, the Doctor found himself once again in between Sherlock and Dean. It was the one spot in the room that hit subzero temperatures, and the Doctor never liked the cold. Too late to move now; all he could do was stand very still and pray another fight didn't break out.

"There's still one missing," said Agent Harris, "but she should be down shortly. In the meantime, we can get down to introductions. As you boys know, I'm Agent Shaw Harris, the head of this team. This here is our biochemist and one-woman medical personnel, Agent Coral King."

Long and lithe, Agent King embodied the royalty carried in her name. Her inky black hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she wore a smart, mottled green and brown dress under her pristine white lab coat. Her face was angular, calm, and relaxed, but her eyes were sharp and watching. Her lips pulled into a warm smile. "It's nice to meet you."

"This gentleman," Agent Harris continued, pointing to the tall, burly man with pale blue eyes and close-cropped blonde hair, "is our pilot and tactical specialist, Agent Elliot Gordon. He doesn't say much."

The agent dipped his head at the trio.

Agent Harris regarded both exits with a small frown. "Still not here . . . ah, well. Presently unaccounted for is our engineer, weapons specialist, and IT technician—"

_WSSH!_

"I'm here! I'm here I'm here I'm here I'm—_WAH!_"

_CRASH!_

Everyone save Agents King and Gordon flinched as a small woman raced into the room and, slipping, fell to the ground, sending the large boxes she held flying.

Agent Harris sighed through the nose. "—Agent Melissa Saunders."

Rubbing her head, Agent Saunders groaned. "Oh dear oh dear oh dear!" she said in a gentle British accent. "I'm so sorry! Oh dear, I'm such a mess." While Agent Gordon picked the spilled boxes off the floor and set them on a nearby counter, Agent Saunders shakily stood up and brushed off her lab coat. She was a small woman—barely coming up to the middle of Agent Gordon's upper arm—with mousy brown hair pulled into a sloppy bun and large brown eyes behind even larger glasses. If Dean had to guess her age, he would guess about seventeen or eighteen. _I guess they take all ages,_ he thought.

"Agents, this is supernatural hunter Dean Winchester, consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, and . . ." Agent Harris gestured vaguely. ". . . the Doctor."

"Doctor?" said Agent King, arching a thin eyebrow. "Doctor who?"

"Yes, exactly," replied the Doctor.

Agent Saunders gasped. "Sherlock Holmes?" she whispered. "_The _Sherlock Holmes?"

Dean snorted. "Well I certainly hope there's only the one."

Both ignored him. Sherlock blinked once. Agent Saunders's jaw dropped and she moved around the table to stand beside Sherlock. Dean and the Doctor were practically shoved out of the way. Adjusting her glasses, Agent Saunders stood on her toes and squinted up at Sherlock's face. Sherlock, gradually getting used to strange situations like this, stood there awkwardly and quietly (like the rest of the room) while the agent studied him like something under a microscope.

"You really are him!" she exclaimed after too long. "You're Sherlock Holmes!" Agent Saunders grabbed the detective's hand and shook it forcefully. "What an honor to meet you, sir! I am such a huge fan! When your blog stopped updating for the longest time, my friend Jemma and I were so—"

Sherlock started like her words sent an electric current through him. "Did you say Jemma?"

Saunders, startled and confused, stopped shaking and said, "Yes, that's right."

"What is her last name?" Sherlock demanded more than asked. "How do you know her?" His face was paler than the usual pasty white and his eyes burned. Dean and the Doctor were surprised: this was the most emotion the consulting detective has shown in the short time they've known each other. They didn't think it was even possible.

"Her name is Jemma Simmons," Agent Saunders stammered, "and she's a fellow agent. We met in Uni."

Sherlock relaxed slightly, but the tense fire never left his eyes.

"I see."

"Do you know her?" Dean asked.

". . . No," Sherlock replied flatly. "I was mistaken. My apologies."

For a few extra moments, Agent Saunders scrutinized the detective's face, this time without the fangirlish excitement. Agent Harris cleared his throat. "Mells? The weapons?"

Agent Saunders jumped, dropping Sherlock's hand to rush back to the boxes she brought in. "Whoops! Sorry, chief! Here we are now." With a grunt, the small agent heaved the larger of the two boxes onto the central table and said, "Just got these in."

With a flourish Agent Saunders threw open the lid. Everyone leaned in. Nestled inside were four matte-grey handguns unlike any handgun Dean and Sherlock have ever seen. Its design was a cross-breed between a Nerf gun and something out of a science-fiction movie. Excitement gleamed in Dean's eyes.

Agent Saunders pulled out the top tray to reveal another tray of the same four handguns. "Straight from the inventor himself," introduced Agent Saunders, "I present to you, the Night-Night Pistol."

Agent Harris let out a low whistle and pulled out one. "So this is Fitz's Night-Night Pistol?" he said, turning over the weapon in his hand. "How'd you manage that?"

"Agent Fitz owed me quite the sum from our last poker game," said Agent Saunders with no small amount of smugness. "I was willing to negotiate. There's enough for each of us plus an extra, but I suggest they only be carried out onto the field as needed. I highly doubt I can squeeze more out from that tight-fisted fool if these go missing."

"What do they do?" Dean asked as he reached for one too. Agent Saunders smacked his hand away.

"No touching! This is a very special weapon that can fire off up to eight .45 caliber rounds per magazine, each round holding enough dendrotoxin to incapacitate a full-grown male—the ideal non-lethal short-range weapon. It is NOT to be mishandled by someone who's only been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for an hour!"

"May I?" Sherlock asked, gesturing to the pistols.

"Oh absolutely!" she gushed.

"Hey!" Dean protested as Sherlock reached into the box. The Doctor slid away slightly.

Agent Saunders removed the second tray to reveal a final tray holding pieces of another weapon. From the way the pieces were shaped, Dean had to guess it was long-range. "I also managed to wheedle a Night-Night Gun out of the deal," she said as her commanding officer peered into the box. "Just the one though, and I had to pinch the extra cartridges."

"Excellent work, Agent Saunders," said Agent Harris as he put the Night-Night Pistol back in the tray. "From now on, every agent takes one Pistol out into the field and immediately puts it back when they return to the jet. What's in the other box?"

"Equipment, mostly. I still haven't finished the . . . erm . . ." she glanced at the others, ". . . project I've been working on."

"Ah, right. I want that finished ASAP."

"Yes, sir."

"Alrighty then." Agent Harris pulled out a miniature version of the glass screen Fury used in his briefing (Dean snickered internally) and opened up a picture and a description. "As you already know, we have five crime scenes to hit in as short amount of time as possible. Our first destination is Boulder, Colorado, where the latest victim was killed."

"Jeremy Keatley," said Sherlock, noting the flash in Winchester's eyes.

The Doctor's eyebrows lifted. "How in the world did you deduce that so quickly?"

"I didn't. It was in the file."

"The folder thing on the conference table?" Dean said. "You flipped through that thing so fast there's no way you saw anything but the pictures."

"I'm a quick reader."

"Well at least someone did their homework," replied Agent Harris. "After that, we head over to where the first victim was killed and go right down the list from there."

"Hang on." All eyes turned to the Doctor. "Why start with the first victim? That trail would have gone cold by now and if we waste time there, then the other crime scenes will too."

"He's got a point," Dean commented. "By now, the cops would've done their business and cleaned up the mess. I doubt the bodies will still be in the morgue."

"You don't need to investigate the mess of the first four victims," Agent King spoke up. "That we've already covered and filed away, which you will be studying in between destinations. Agent Saunders has already outfitted your room with a holographic projector so you can investigate the remains in 3D."

"So there _are_ holograms!"

Rolling up his sleeve, Agent Harris checked his watch and said, "Just in the nick of time." He unrolled his sleeve. "I've covered everything I needed to cover. Is there anything else someone wants to add?"

"I do." Agent King raised her hand. "I would like the three new recruits to stick around so I can run a few tests, do a quick examination, and record their medical history in the event of an emergency." She regarded the recruits in question. "Will that be a problem?"

"Nope."

"Fine by me."

"If you must."

"Excellent." She smiled.

"Anything else?" asked Agent Harris. "No? Alrighty then, that's all for now. We have several hours before we land, so use that time wisely. It's going to be a long couple of weeks, if we're lucky, so I suggest you rest up and prepare for whatever may happen."

* * *

That night, after exploring the plane a bit, the Doctor returned to the lounge, back to the seat he had woken up from not too long ago. Even if he hadn't had the nap from earlier, there was no way he would turn in any sooner than he had to, not when he shared a room with two time bombs.

_If only Rose were here_, some small part of him whispered. _She'd know how to handle them. Or at the very least she'd scare them into getting along._

The Doctor sighed heavily as he settled into the leather and leaned his head back. Plane travel was quickly losing what little charm it had to impatience; it was too slow, too inconvenient, and offered very little entertainment. If only he still had the T.A.R.D.I.S.—they would've already been at the third crime scene by now.

If only, if only . . .

* * *

Dean also avoided conflict by taking a trip down to the cargo hold where his baby was parked. It was much quieter inside the Impala than outside, and if Dean closed his eyes he could almost pretend that he wasn't thousands of miles from . . . not home, per se. More like general normalcy. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that Sam would slide into the passenger seat at any moment with his usual "So get this . . ." or that Cas would appear out of thin air in the backseat, impart some angelic fortune-cookie wisdom, and poof away again.

If only, if only . . .

Dean kept his eyes wide open as he took another swig from the beer in his hand, his fourth today. Or was it his fifth?

You know, for the crap that he goes through on a daily basis, you'd think that he'd get a little more out of saving people than, say, more crap to deal with. He thought back to his time on the helicarrier, while he was waiting for Fury to show up. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had bustled in a purposeful mess so the whole floor looked like the inside of a beehive. Dean remembered watching them with interest. Those men and women were all soldiers; he could see it in their eyes and in the hardness of their faces, both of which he saw in the mirror every morning. The only difference was those guys got a federal salary out of it. If you were going to help people for a living, you might as well get paid for it, right? Air travel wouldn't be too bad—he shuddered internally—so long as he doesn't look out the windows or think about the fifty thousand miles between him and the ground. When this was all said and done, he and Sammy could switch majors and work for S.H.I.E.L.D. . . .

. . . .

Nah.

He finished off his drink in annoyance; this was definitely the beer talking. It was one thing to impersonate a federal agent—it's a completely different animal actually _being_ a federal agent. All of the hoops and regulations to jump through just to get anything done, only a complete idiot signs up for that kind of headache.

No, it's better to dig up graves now and ask permission never.

* * *

Sherlock was the only one who immediately returned to their room after the meeting ended, eager to start pouring over evidence.

The room he was to share with his new "playmates" was small, way too small for three _very_ grown men to use at once. One side of the room was taken up by a bunk bed, the opposite side by a single bed. Naturally Sherlock claimed the single bed for himself and contented himself with letting the other two fight out top-and-bottom bunk. There were two windows, a small bookshelf for case files in between, and enough floor space between the two beds for the overhead holographic projector to project full-body images of the victims. In his exploration of his new living space, Sherlock discovered that this section of the floor could be lifted open and used for storage.

The consulting detective first absorbed all the files on the bookshelf, giving each reference material way more time than the look-over he had given to the victim file on the helicarrier. Though he would have preferred one of the electronic tablets Agent Harris used, Sherlock was pleased to find the case files were very organized and even more detailed. There was one thick folder listing and biographing all of the potential suspects S.H.I.E.L.D. has come up with, three-fourths of which Sherlock ruled out on the spot.

Once he finished there, he used the control pad over the bookshelf to power up the holographic projector. He certainly hoped that he would have the opportunity to examine the actual corpses and not just their holograms: as detailed and life-like as the holograms were, there was something more assuring about the presence of a flesh-and-blood carcass, like his deductions were more right for examining the physical rather than the image. Still, he could make do for the time being.

The projector also had full floor plans of each of the residences the victims were killed in; he found out how to mark certain spots for future reference.

_I need one for the flat_, he mused to himself as he zoomed in on one victim's kitchen. _Right over the living room. I wonder if Mrs. Hudson would approve. John certainly would—_

Sherlock paused. Not for the first time, he had to remind himself that John didn't live at 221b anymore. He wasn't even sure where his friend was at the moment.

A very sour taste filled Sherlock's mouth and his stomach turned. If only he had at least one tiny little clue, something more than a smudged maybe-a-paw-print to go off of, something that would point to a _where _instead of a _who_ or_ what_, the more important part of the case would be solved more quickly.

If only, if only . . .

Sherlock shook his head and gave his face a smack to snap himself back to reality. This always happened the moment he let his mind wander away from the case, and it was getting harder to refocus his attention back onto what needed to be done.

Suddenly very drained, Sherlock cut off the projector.

When Dean and the Doctor finally turned in for the night, both tired and in heavy spirits, they found their room completely dark and Sherlock already in bed, presumably fast asleep. A snide remark formed on Winchester's lips, but he decided to drop it.

It took all of three seconds for Dean and the Doctor to wordlessly decide who would take the top and bottom bunks. As Dean climbed up the ladder, the Doctor closed the door and crawled into bed. The dark grew still.

Despite what they originally thought, Sherlock was, in fact, not asleep. Not even close. Like his two roommates, sleep danced just beyond his reach because his body knew something his mind did not.

Something was happening. Something greater than their three minds collectively could begin to imagine.

For now, with their weapons of choice tucked away under their pillows, our heroes subconsciously contented themselves with the knowledge that their loved ones were only missing, possibly kidnapped.

If only, if only . . .


	4. The Countless Hours

**The Countless Hours**

* * *

A loud screech of metal-on-metal woke Sam from his restless sleep. Light flooded his vision, forcing him to screw his eyes shut. Something slid across the hard floor followed by a faint rolling noise and with another screech, the light vanished. Sam opened his eyes again and blinked away the red spots. Not an inch from where his head lay, John stirred. Sam reached out. The woman was still there.

"Cas?" he murmured.

"Here," came the deep reply just behind Sam.

The pit in Sam's stomach eased. Everyone was here. They survived their first night . . . or at least their first sleep. Time was impossible to keep track of in this place.

Slowly sliding his fingers across the floor, Sam gingerly reached for the thing that had emerged from the light. It was cool and smooth to the touch. Skimming its edges, Sam felt that it was only a few centimeters tall and rectangular.

"Watson," Sam said. "Are you awake?"

"Kind of impossible not to be after all that noise," grumbled the army doctor, followed by the rustle of movement.

"Shine the light over here."

More rustling then a click as the keychain-light sprang to life. A huge, yawning shadow appeared and stretched all the way to the other side of the small prison where the door had opened. Sam leaned out of the beam. Before him was a plastic tray holding two rolls of bread, three sausage links, and a few cheese squares. Not too far from the tray were two bottles of water. Sam moved the tray and waters to the center of the circle the four made. "Well," he said, "at least they're feeding us."

While John tried to rouse the blond woman again, Sam divided up the food as best as he could. "None for me," Cas said when Sam handed him his share.

"Why not?" Sam said, more insisting than questioning.

Cas glanced at John. "Not hungry."

"You have to eat," John said, momentarily turning from the woman. "It's been at least hours since you've last eaten. It's bad enough you took a whole watch instead of letting us take shifts. You need your strength."

"Yeah, Cas," Sam deadpanned pointedly. "Eat up." _Before he gets suspicious._

" . . . . . Alright."

With the flashlight sitting face-up in the middle, the three men ate in silence, passing around one water bottle and saving the other, just in case. The largest portion was set aside for when the woman woke up. Every so often John and Sam would give her a gentle shake, to no avail.

"No sign of fever," John remarked. "And she mumbled earlier so I don't think it's a concussion, but I can't be sure."

"What I'd like to know is how we got here," said Sam, "or why for that matter."

"Who? What? Where? Why? How?" Cas grumbled. "Excellent questions with no answers."

"Inspiring as always, Castiel."

"I try to be."

"Here's what we know," John began, gesturing with the make-shift mini hotdog in his hand. "This is a kidnapping. We are in a stationary metal room with no openings except for those vents—" he pointed up "—and that door." He pointed straight ahead. "There are people outside this room and they want us alive."

"For now," Cas said.

"For now," John agreed. "We have no weapons, no means to defend ourselves except for brute force, but in our state that's not saying much. What else?"

After a moment's thought, Sam snapped his fingers. "We have a flashlight—" he dug out one pocket "—some gum—" he dug out the other pocket "—a paperclip—" he dug out his back pockets "—and a wallet with a credit card, twenty-two cents, and—" Sam pulled out a card and frowned. "—a punch-card to Pudding &amp; Pie? What the hell? I've never been to—" Realization dawned on his face. "Why do I have Dean's wallet?!"

"Who's Dean?"

"Does this pose a problem?" Cas asked.

Sam tucked the card back into its holder with a huff. "Not really. Oh, and Dean is my older brother."

John pointed a finger at him. "That's another thing. We have people on the outside."

"Yes, and they want us alive," said Cas. "You already covered that."

"No, I mean we have people _outside_ the outside. At least two people who would notice our disappearances and do something about it."

"Who do you have?" Sam asked, curious.

"A friend," he replied. "One with a knack for finding lost things."

"Great! We just have to last long enough for them to get here." Sam sighed. "Hopefully that shouldn't be too hard since, as you said, they want us alive."

"For now," Cas said.

"For now," Sam agreed. "I say we stick to what we planned: stay within arm's reach at all times when we don't have the flashlight on, sleep in shifts, and conserve like crazy. Obviously we're all we've got at the moment, so if we work together we can get out of this."

The next several hours were spent in relative quiet. Imminent danger lurked just outside the confines of their prison and yet for the time being, frustration and boredom were their greatest enemies. As a result, the captives went back to sleeping in shifts to conserve their strength and prevent worsening their injuries. John took the first watch before Cas could offer to take it. Cas wasn't too pleased; he shifted and squirmed in his spot on the floor, too uncomfortable to feign sleep. The light was turned off to preserve the battery.

To keep his muscles limber against all the inactivity, Sam did light exercises a short distance from his sleeping companions during his shifts. He took extra care to favor his sprained wrist, which Watson had expertly bound with the sleeve torn off Sam's shirt. The movement helped ease his restlessness.

For the longest time, the only sound in the cell was Sam's gentle grunts as he did sit-ups in the dark. Just as he was about to hit forty, Sam heard a small noise. He froze.

"_. . . Nnh . . ."_

Sam rolled silently onto his knees and crawled forward. Two steps and his hands brushed against unmistakably familiar fabric. He grabbed hold and shook it.

"Cas, what was that?"

"Mhrm?" Cas grunted.

"Were you seriously asleep?"

"Of course not," the angel grumbled. "Don't be ridiculous. What is it?"

"There was a noise just now. What was it?"

The pair fell silent, listening intently. They sat there for a while until Cas said, "I don't hear any—"

" _. . . Nnh . . ."_

Sam felt Cas sit up quickly. "It's the woman," he said. "Wake the doctor."

While Cas moved to the woman's side, Sam searched blindly for Watson's sleeping body, cursing for not having thought to take the light from him before starting his shift. _New rule, then,_ Sam thought.

John woke easily enough, and was up like a rocket when he heard Cas say: "She's waking! Turn the light on!"

Within moments the flashlight was on and all three men were crouched at her side. The woman's dark eyebrows bunched together and she groaned. Very slowly her eyes opened, only to immediately squeeze shut again.

"Too bright!" she moaned.

"Oops, sorry." John moved the light out of her face.

The woman's eyes blinked open again. She was immediately greeted by the oh-so-comforting sight of three unfamiliar, disheveled men staring down at her from inky darkness with nothing to illuminate their hollowed faces except a harsh, white light. To her credit, she didn't scream. Probably because her brain was too shocked to order air to her vocal chords, but that is neither here nor there.

Very slowly, cautious not to disturb her throbbing head, she sat up only to find more darkness ahead.

"Where am I?" she asked dazedly.

"We don't know," Sam replied. "We all woke up in here a while ago."

"How do you feel?" John asked.

"I feel like I just woke up from drinking an entire pub to a strange room with even stranger men, but other than that, just peachy. Who are you anyway?"

"Sam Winchester."

"John Watson."

"Castiel . . ." The angel trailed off into awkward silence.

The woman cleared her throat and said, "Rose Tyler. It's a pleasure . . . sort of."

"We have already established that this is a kidnapping," said Cas, "and that they want us alive."

"For now," John and Sam said.

"For now," Cas agreed. "That's the extent of our knowledge. If you have any idea as to who did this or why we were kidnapped, please share."

Rose looked down at her lap for a few moments, brow furrowed a bit, then replied, "No. Sorry, I can't remember much before I got hit."

Sam rocked back on his heels with a sigh. "So that's it then," he huffed. "Welcome aboard, Rose Tyler."

Cas glanced from Sam to Rose and back. "I'm sorry," he said. "That was a reference to the phrase 'being on the same boat', correct?"

John dropped his head. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. Rose wondered if Cas was for real or not. John's head popped back up. "Hold on. You said you were hit," he said. "Then you woke up here?"

"That's right. Why?"

"I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner. What happened right before you were hit? Where were you? What were you doing?"

Rose took a deep breath and closed her eyes, pressing her fingers to her lips. John stood the flashlight up in the center of their little circle. Just enough light was cast to illuminate their faces. Cas, John, and Sam waited patiently as Rose collected her thoughts. After several moments, she opened her eyes and said, "I can't recall all of the little details, but I do know that I was at an amusement park with a friend. He left to do something and while he was gone, I wandered into one of the tents. Next thing I knew, this . . . _thing _flew in out of nowhere and knocked me out."

"I see," John said just as Cas growled, "She's lying."

"What?" said Sam and John.

Rose's jaw dropped. "I am not!" she exclaimed.

"You're only telling part of the truth. Don't try to deny it—I know when I'm being lied to."

"Is he right?" John asked the blond. "I need you to be honest with us. This could shed a little light on whatever's going on here."

"You can trust us," Sam added.

Rose studied their faces, especially Sam's. While Castiel's eyes were grim and serious and John's were piercing, Sam's eyes were open, friendly. The truth was there on the tip of her tongue but still she hesitated to share.

Biting her lip, Rose exhaled sharply through the nose, smiled ruefully, and muttered, "You probably wouldn't believe me even if I told you."

Sam smirked. "Try me."

Rose turned back to him, brow furrowed at his dry amusement. She glanced at the others. John folded his arms across his chest and waited. Castiel was completely still. She sighed. "Oh, all right," she said. "But first, have you got anything to eat? I'm starving."

After she wolfed down what remained of the group's meager meal, Rose said, "You see, my friend and I . . . we're . . . crime fighters, of a sort."

"Meaning?"

"We . . . we travel around and stop evil extraterrestrials. Now I know what you're thinking," she held up a hand at their disbelieving faces, "it sounds crazy. If it wasn't important to the story, I wouldn't've told you in the first place.

"Three weeks ago," she said, "there were strange things reported at an old amusement park. Weird noises from tents that were completely empty, technology shutting off within a fixed radius around certain rides. We snuck in in the middle of the night to investigate. While my friend went to check out the rides, I heard a noise from one of the tents. I went inside and, er, found what was causing the weirdness."

"You mean the aliens?" Cas asked.

"They're called the Yllri," she said. "Really ugly blokes about this big—most of it is taken up by their head—a sickly orange color, covered in a thin coating of grey slime, skin like a rubber snake, itty-bitty clawed mitts, and—"

"We get it," Sam interjected. "It was really ugly."

"It was dead," said Rose. "By the look of it, had been for a few days. Before I could get a chance to get a good look, there was a creak behind me and when I turned around, this _thing _flew out of the darkness and whacked me on the head! When I woke up . . ." She gestured to the guys. ". . . well, here we are."

No one said a word as the three men tried to process Rose's story. Castiel, as a soldier in heaven's army, had never bothered with whatever lies outside earth's atmosphere: if there was life in the deeper recesses of space, he didn't know about it. Sam had only one experience with aliens on the job, but that turned out to be a bunch of evil faeries. And the only thing convincing John, man of rational science that he was with his all-too-real brushes with reality, that Rose Tyler wasn't insane was his past experience with complete psychopaths (and one high-functioning sociopath). He knew crazy, and she wasn't it.

"So wait," Sam finally said, "does that mean that the crap that happened in New York and England _actually happened_?!"

Rose nodded.

"Were you and your friend involved?"

"We didn't start or end the attacks, if that's what you're asking, but yes, we were involved. But that's a _whole _other story, not worth getting into now."

John covered his face in his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose with his two forefingers. "Let's say I believe you," he said. "How do you know this . . . this . . ."

"Yllri."

"How do you know it was the cause of all the noises and technological malfunctions?"

"Yllri are a strange bunch," explained Rose. "The slime coating their bodies gives off a bizarre frequency, sort of like an electrical charge but not really. If it smears up against something or drips on the floor, the slime continuously gives off the charge, driving technology ballistic until it shuts off completely. It also has a weird effect on humans; often it makes them paranoid and causes them to hear or see things that aren't there, but prolonged exposure will bring out weird sides to a person. Lucky us the goop wasn't around long enough to get that far."

The inside of Sam's mouth turned to ash. John shook his head and sat back. Cas held his chin, brooding blue eyes staring past the ground. "Could this strange creature be the reason why you were taken?" he asked her.

"Not possible," John interjected. "Otherwise we'd all have something to do with these—"

"Yllri," Cas filled for him.

"—yes, that. I don't know about you, but I had no such dealings with little green men—"

"Little _orange_ men."

"—before I was taken." John gestured to Sam. "You're with me on this, right?"

Sam cleared his throat. "Well, actually, there's something I should tell you."

Three faces immediately turned to him in surprise. Sam rubbed his hands together, gently smoothing out the ache in his wrist. Things were starting to come back to him, things from that night that he hadn't really thought to think about until Rose brought the thought to his mind. Now he had no choice in the matter.

"Before I tell you about the night Cas and I were kidnapped," Sam began, "a little background. Since Rose was willing to open up about what she does, I think it's only fair that I'm completely honest, too." He huffed. "My brother and I? We hunt the supernatural."

"Oh, for the love of—!"

"Now hang on, Watson. I know this sounds crazy, but it's the truth. Ghosts, werewolves, vampires, that kind of thing? We've been hunting them since we were kids."

John turned to Cas and demanded, "What about you, eh? You a hunter, too?"

Cas shifted uncomfortably. "Not exactly, no. I'm an angel."

"Jesus Christ!"

"No, but I get that a lot."

Sam looked to Rose. Her face was stone; Sam was afraid for a second that she didn't believe him. Without changing her expression, Rose said calmly, "So it is true. Ghosts, spirits—they're all real."

Sam exhaled. "Yeah."

"Demons?"

"Yeah."

Rose sighed through the nose. "I was afraid as much."

John dragged his hands down his already-drawn face. "All right," he said barely above a whisper, "say I believe you, which is a _very_ rough assumption considering I already had to go through accepting that _aliens _were real. Say I believe you—what happened?"

Images popped up in Sam's brain in a mad scramble that eventually sorted itself into a coherent timeline. Once the final piece fell into place, Sam took another deep breath, filling his lungs to the brim before letting it all escape in one long exhale. Ignoring the bitter taste rising to the back of his throat, Sam began his story.

"Because of our line of work, my brother Dean and I are pretty used to all things weird. You name it, we've probably been through it, literally and figuratively.

"But then a couple weeks back we got a phone call . . . ."

* * *

**I know I say it in every chapter, but thank you so much to everyone who took the time to Follow/Favorite and Review this story. It warms the cockles of my heart . . . wherever I last put it. . . . .**


	5. Going Somewhere

**Hi hi hi!**

**Happy Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-Hanukah-Kwanza-New Year-Valentine's/Single's Awareness Day everyone! :D**** I know it's a little late, but hey, better late than never, amiright? ****Heh, heh, heh . . .**

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**Thank you soooooooo much to everyone who's stuck around after all this time. I hope it was not in vain!**

**Without further ado, the next chapter!**

* * *

**Going Somewhere**

* * *

Boulder, Colorado.

Tucked into a picturesque valley below the iconic Flatirons, Boulder hosted thriving tech and natural foods industries, supported a renowned entrepreneurial community, had some of the region's best restaurants, and was home to many federal research labs and a world-class university.

Or at least, that's what it says on their website.

"Will that be all, sir?"

"Yes, ma'am."

_Ch-king! _

To be fair, it wasn't the worst place Dean's ever been to. The city was perfect postcard material, complete with mountains and bright skies and all that other nature stuff. But since the moment he pulled into town, he had to fight to keep his face disinterested—especially with his majesty, Lord Pain-in-the-Ass, sitting in the backseat waiting to deduce all sorts of crap from the rearview mirror—all the while his insides twisted and burned and his entire body itched to ditch the deadweight and turn the whole place upside down by himself. He always did his best work alone anyway.

"Thank you! Come again!"

Instead, Dean gave the cashier a tight smile and walked out of the 7-Eleven like he was just another tourist.

As soon as he slid into the Impala's driver seat, the Doctor looked up from the box of old tapes in his lap and said, "Did you get the thingies with the yellow and the cream?"

Dean frowned. "You had at least fifty on the ride from the airport."

The Doctor stared at him.

After a few moments of staring back, Dean rolled his eyes and handed him the plastic bag. "Yeah, I got them."

"YES."

Sherlock leaned forward in his seat. "Did you get the—"

Dean chucked a box of nicotine patches over his shoulder and hit Sherlock square on the forehead. Sherlock yelped, surprised, and fell back. Rubbing the injury, Sherlock glared daggers at the Winchester in the rearview mirror.

"That was uncalled for."

"Oh, it was called for," Dean quipped.

That was the most they've spoken to each other since the meeting. Halfway between where S.H.I.E.L.D. dropped them off and Boulder, the Doctor decided to break the heavy silence with conversation. And not the good kind either, if there can even _be _a good kind given the situation_._ He was quickly acquainted with a certain sponge-like pastry, allowing silence to rule the car once again.

Since they were on a tight schedule, the group made a beeline for the first objective. Agent Harris had decided that Dean, Sherlock, and the Doctor were all professional enough to undergo their own investigation and allowed them to come up with their own plan once they touched down. A marvelous idea, until he told them not to split up and go off alone as it was against S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol. Dean suspected Harris was really just trying to push the whole teamwork thing, although—he glanced at Sherlock through the rearview mirror again—he highly doubted that was going to work out too well.

Luckily for them they were at the very least able to reach some sort of agreement before the plane landed. _Un_luckily this "agreement" was reached via shouting match between Sherlock, who wanted to go straight to the morgue, and Dean, who wanted to go to where the body was found. Neither side would budge, so when the argument nearly came to blows, it was the Doctor who ultimately decided for them.

"I don't know how long the morgue will hold a body," he said, "or how much they'll tamper with it. The same idea is true for where the victim was found, yes, but at least the building will be in the same place by the time we get to it." As much as he hated to give in to what Sherlock wanted, Dean had to admit that the Doctor was right.

The Impala slid tentatively into a parking space right outside the main entrance to the Boulder County Coroner's Office. As Dean cut the engine, the Doctor quickly wiped away the cream gathered at the corners of his mouth and said, "So how are we getting in?"

"Easy." Dean handed a dark rectangle to the Doctor and tossed another one back to Sherlock. "We walk."

"That's it?" the Doctor asked. "No sneaky lock-picking the back door? No crawling through air vents? Just walk in through the front door?"

"Sorry, Mission Impossible. Let's try to keep it simple."

The Doctor pouted and flipped open the rectangle. Inside was a golden badge and a fake ID with his picture. Sherlock tucked his badge into the inside of his coat. "Impersonating a government official," he said. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Don't act so high and mighty," Dean snorted back. "Besides, this time I have the government's blessing. That Saunders chick gave 'em to me before we left; we should have absolutely no problem getting in."

He was right—the intern at the front desk immediately got that familiar nervous-awe look the second Dean said "FBI".

"You made it just in the nick of time," the intern said as he led them to the back room. "We usually don't keep bodies this long, but we got a call from higher up to hold onto it a bit longer."

"Would've been here sooner," Dean quipped, "but we ran into traffic on the way over."

The intern's brow furrowed a bit at the sarcasm, and he said no more. He was barely out of the room before Sherlock immediately rushed the table and pulled the crisp white sheet using only his fingertips.

Dean gave a low whistle and grimaced. "Well someone's been busy," he remarked as Sherlock pulled back the sheet to the corpse's midsection. Just as Coulson said, the throat area was ripped open, seemingly by animal claws. But that was where the major strangeness ended. The body was molted with bruises, some fresh and some almost fully healed; most were concentrated on the face, neck, and ribcage. Cuts, scrapes, and one non-fatal stab wound, also in various stages of healing, marred the body as well. Not the kind of wounds resulting from an animal attack.

Sherlock opened the mouth and peered inside. Just as he expected—two missing teeth. He huffed and removed his fingers.

Yes, there was no denying that this nineteen-year-old has been in several, unmistakably brutal fights. The yellowed bruises alone are at least two weeks old, and the fresher ones were received at most two days before the victim died. Sherlock had seen these types of wounds on many people, living and dead, during his various cases but never had the sight been more irksome than in this singular instant. Sherlock turned the corpse's head one way and then the other and spotted something interesting. Amongst the bruises and cuts was a thin scabbed-over line across the victim's neck, a small incision a few centimeters from the spine no longer than his thumb. A strange blue-green-purple bruise with darker, hair-thin veins radiated out from the cut.

An infection? Sherlock didn't remember seeing that on the other victims' bodies or any mention of it in their autopsy reports. Something to look at when they returned to the ship.

"I'm not seeing anything overly unusual," the Doctor admitted regretfully. "Poor chap looks like he was beaten to death before something frightful got ahold of him."

Sherlock _hmph_'ed. "Well, Mr. Winchester?" he said without looking at the hunter. "What say you? A psychotic fairy got ahold of him? Or perhaps you think Big Foot met him in the woods."

Dean shot to detective a poisoned glare and pulled out his EMF detector. The moment he flipped the switch, the device screamed and flashed all five of its lights. Sherlock and the Doctor flinched at the sudden noise. Dean's eyebrows jumped up. He hadn't even put the thing that close to the body yet and already the needle was practically trying to fly out of the machine. He took several steps back. The EMF kept screaming. Dean kept moving backwards until he was about five feet away from the table where the corpse lay. The EMF abruptly stopped screaming and settled to a quiet mumble with only one light on, indicating that the device was on but not picking up any EMF.

Dean frowned and took one small step forward. Immediately the EMF detector started screaming again. Dean quickly stepped back again. The detector went quiet.

A bad feeling tugged at the pits of Dean's gut. Going on instinct, he walked in a circle around where the body lay.

"Huh," he said when he returned from his original point.

"What is it?" the Doctor asked.

"The electromagnetic field makes a complete circle around the body," Dean explained.

"What does it mean?"

"Dunno, but it ain't normal."

The Doctor frowned and turned back towards the body.

Dean pocketed the detector and said, "So what about you, Detective McGruff? What do your all-seeing eyes see?"

". . . . . . Oh I'm sorry, did you say something? I mistook your voice for a gnat flying around my ear."

"Is it physically impossible for you NOT to be an ass for more than three seconds?"

"Is it physically impossible for you NOT to ARGUE for more than three seconds?" snapped the Doctor. "Blimey, say something useful, or don't say anything at all."

The two men immediately fell quiet and stayed quiet until the Doctor finished his look-over of the corpse. The Doctor turned each hand over, inspecting carefully before putting it back. He then pulled the white sheet over the victim's head.

"Did you find anything, Doctor?" asked Sherlock in a tone that could be mistaken for mild respect.

"There is a faint, almost unnoticeable staining on the tips of his right hand," the Doctor replied. "I believe it is electromagnetic jelly, typically found on some planets in the 392nd precinct of the Novar gala—"

"Aaand that's where I stop you," Sherlock said, every iota of maybe-respect flying out the window. "The moment we bring _aliens_ into rational conversation is the moment our chances of solving this case in a timely fashion diminish exponentially. Electromagnetic jelly? Surely you can come up with something better than that."

Partially-bruised apple was the color Dean thought the Doctor's face looked like at Sherlock's comment, but the detective wasn't done.

"I tolerated the first mention of aliens because it was _mildly_ amusing—"

_THAT was toleration?! _Dean and the Doctor thought, thinking back to Sherlock's insults on the helicarrier.

"—but from now on, I will not be so forgiving. One more word about extraterrestrial nonsense and I will take my abilities elsewhere. Is that understood?"

Dean glanced at the Doctor from the corner of his eye. The fury in the Doctor's face collapsed into concentrated cold so his chocolate eyes were like twin chips of ice.

"Perfectly," the Doctor said calmly.

"Good." Sherlock began to walk away, saying, "Now if there's nothing else to be found here, we have other destinations to reach before time is up. And besides," the detective paused to smirk at the others, "standing around a corpse for so long gets a bit morbid, don't you think?"

Smirk still on his lips, Sherlock turned and walked out of the autopsy room. Dean moved to stand beside the Doctor and the two watched him go in silence. They stared, and after a time, Dean finally spoke.

"He's gonna end up dead before this is over, isn't he?" he said.

"Yes," the Doctor replied. "And if they ask, it was an accident."

"Agreed."

* * *

The home of Heather Keatley was small, older, and sat apart from the other houses in the neighborhood. No one had mowed the lawn in a while, the bushes surrounding the house reached for the lower-level windows, and the pastel blue paint chipped here and there. There were three trees on the whole property, and they were tall and wide-canopied enough to give the place a shadowed atmosphere even though the sun was at midday height.

The Impala carefully crept onto the worn driveway before coming to a slow stop. Dean and Sherlock immediately stepped out, but the Doctor took a few moments to fiddle with something Dean couldn't see from this angle. Uninterested, the hunter turned to the consulting detective and said, "I know you're such a great people-person and all, but why don't you let me do the talking while you . . . deduce . . . stuff."

"Very well," replied Sherlock, which surprised Dean a little. The Doctor finally climbed out of the car and asked, "What's going on?"

"I was just telling Mr. Sunshine over here to let me do most of the talking," Dean said. "If that's alright by you."

"I don't see why not. While you two are talking with Mrs. Keatley, I'm going to snoop around the outside. I have a feeling there's something important to be discovered here."

"You go right ahead," Dean said and adjusted his tie. "Come on, Sunshine. Let's get this over with." Sherlock pointedly ignored the jibe and followed him up to the front door. The Doctor disappeared around the side of the house.

At the top of the hazard that was the porch stairs, Dean rang the doorbell and waited. Not much time passed before soft footsteps could be heard. Dean squared his shoulders.

The chipping black door opened just enough for a weary, pale face to peer out. "Can I help you?" the woman asked demurely.

"Are you Mrs. Keatley?"

"I am."

Dean pulled a badge from within his coat and held it out for her to see. Sherlock jumped to do the same. "I'm Special Agent Wilson, FBI, and this is my partner, Special Agent McGruff."

Mrs. Keatley eyed the badge warily. Dean didn't even bat an eye. These badges were brand spanking new, fresh from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s printer and as a result they were _way _more legit than his old ones. Finally deciding that the two strangers on her doorstep were the real thing, Mrs. Keatley's dark eyes flicked back up to Dean's face and she deadpanned, "I'm assuming you're here to talk about my boy?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Mmm." The woman took a step back and opened the door a bit wider, allowing the pair to step inside. "You boys are slower than the rest," she commented as she sat down in one of the armchairs in the living room. "My boy's been gone for a week now and I've had all sorts of government types come to me with questions. Just when I think I can finally have a bit of peace around here . . ."

From the couch across from her, Dean opened his mouth to speak but surprisingly he was beaten to the punch. "I'm very sorry to prolong your grief," Sherlock said sincerely. "I promise we will not trouble you any longer than we have to."

Mrs. Keatley was clearly taken aback—not nearly as much as Dean, who almost tripped—by the detective's kindness. Some of the harshness in her expression lessened and she dropped her gaze.

"My boy's been gone for a week now," she murmured, "but I still feel like any minute now he'll walk through that door again."

"What was your son like?" asked Dean. "Any strange behaviors before he died?"

Mrs. Keatley sighed and leaned back in her chair. "My son," she began, "was a troubled boy. His father died in service when he was fourteen; he took his death very hard. Eventually he got mixed up in the wrong crowd and got himself in all sorts of trouble."

"Like?" Dean asked.

"Drugs, mostly." Her voice cracked once, but she glared at the men as if daring them to think ill of her son. "Oh don't give me that look, sonny—I know everything that goes on under my roof. Stubborn boy. I think it started after I was laid off; money was tight to begin with, and me losing my job put us in a very dangerous situation. After the second time he was arrested, he dropped out of school and devoted his life to dealing drugs."

Sherlock fought a smirk. So he was right about the arrests and the drug-dealing. But something wasn't right. . . .

"Mrs. Keatley," the consulting detective asked with as much politeness as he could fake, "your son wasn't a violent man despite his . . . choice in profession?"

"No," the woman said, but Sherlock noted the hesitation. "No, my boy, for all his teenaged angst and broodiness, would never harm a soul."

Sherlock's expression didn't change and he looked at her as if waiting for her to continue. Taking this as a sign of disbelief, Mrs. Keatley readjusted her shawl uncomfortably and said, "I take it you saw hi— . . . his body before you came here."

"No one gets hurt like that walking down the street, Mrs. Keatley," Dean said.

"That is true. Yes, my son got into plenty of fights in his time, but I don't believe for a second that he started any of them. Even at a young age, he never had a stomach for violence."

Sherlock almost leapt up with a shout of victory. Of course he had been right this whole time. Sherlock masked a self-satisfied smile behind his hands.

"You seem pretty okay with your son dealing drugs." Dean held his palms out. "Didn't you try to stop him?"

"Of course I did," the woman snapped, almost startling Dean. "Any mother in her right mind would!" The fire in her eyes softened into low-burning despair. "I confronted him one night about it. He looked so tired—he hadn't slept right in days, but when I told him I knew what he was doing and that he needed to stop before he got seriously hurt, he suddenly came alive and started shouting at me, saying I had no right to order him around. He said something about doing so much for me, making sure that we had enough money to keep a roof over our head and food on the table. Things were said that should never have been said, and he stormed out. I didn't see him for two whole weeks after that, and when he finally came home . . ."

Unable to continue, Mrs. Keatley looked to the window. The boys sat patiently in utter silence as she waded through the tide of overwhelming grief for her lost child.

Mrs. Keatley took a deep breath and turned her misty eyes back to the two strangers. "When he finally came home," she continued in a broken whisper, "he was so tired and so battered that he fell upon that couch—" she pointed one knobbed finger to where they sat "—and slept for the entire day. I was so happy he was alive that I swore to myself that I would never speak of his habits again.

"But God in heaven was it hard. Have you ever had to watch someone destroy themselves while you could only stand back and let them? There were some nights he came home later than usual so banged up you'd think he just came out of a war zone."

Dean gripped his hands with greater force.

"What happened the night Jeremy died?" Sherlock asked.

Mrs. Keatley flinched at the mention of her son's name. Dean shot Sherlock a look. It went ignored.

"I don't know what happened," she said hoarsely. "He was no different than he usually was . . . though he did act a bit more nervous than usual just before he left for the last time. I didn't think anything of it at the time . . . but he never came home. He was always late coming home and I always stayed up for him, but this _one time_ I was so tired, I fell asleep before he got back." Mrs. Keatley's face crumpled and her voice shattered to a thousand pieces as she rasped, "When I woke the next morning, an officer was at my doorstep, saying they found his body inside a condemned building on the other side of town. If I'd just stopped him, if I'd just stayed awake . . ."

Dean moved forward, put his hand over the woman's, and looked her straight into her watery hazel eyes. "Mrs. Keatley," he said kindly, "what happened to your son was not your fault. Nothing you could've done would have changed anything. You understand?"

Mrs. Keatley nodded. Dean smiled and with a final pat on her hand, he rose. Sherlock followed suit.

"I think we've caused you enough grief for a while," he said as he buttoned his suit coat. "Thank you for your time and cooperation."

"Wait." Dean and Sherlock stopped mid-turn towards the door. Mrs. Keatley rose shakily from her chair, her face set into a determined scowl. "I don't care what the other police or the media or anyone else says," she said. "My boy's death was no accident. Call me crazy, but I know he was murdered. I feel it in my bones.

"Please, find the people who did this. Find the people who killed my Jeremy."

* * *

Outside, next to where the Impala was parked, a gentle breeze brushed against Dean's face, carrying the distant smell of barbeque grill with it. Dean sniffed. Burgers, for sure, and hot dogs, too. The smell made him nauseous.

The only thing making the current situation worse was the standing around doing nothing in awkward silence with Detective Sunshine. Dean leaned against the driver's side door with his back to the gloomy consulting detective, but that didn't do much to help Dean pretend he wasn't there.

"It's getting dark," Sherlock commented out of the blue, "and we still have yet to investigate the building where the victim was found."

"When did Agent What's-His-Face say he wanted us back at the jet?" Dean asked.

He heard the detective exhale, most likely annoyed at the constraint. "He wants the jet to take off at noon tomorrow," Sherlock replied.

Dean did a little mental math. It took them roughly four hours to get to Boulder from where S.H.I.E.L.D. dropped them off. To make it in time, they would have to wrap up whatever they were doing at the time before eight in the morning. Dean checked the time. Almost eight o'clock and like Sherlock said, they still needed to check out where the kid's body was found.

Then there was still that one thing he needed to do. . . .

"We better hurry it up, then," Dean grumbled. "Where the hell is Crazy Hair?"

Just then the Doctor appeared from around the side of the house. He ran up to the two waiting men, stopping in front of the Impala slightly winded.

Sherlock asked, "Did you find anything?"

"Hang on," Dean cut him off. "Let's talk about this in the car. We can't stand around on this lady's property too long before it starts looking suspicious."

As soon as the three slipped into the Impala, this time with the Doctor in the back and Sherlock riding shotgun, Dean pulled out of the Keatley drive way and the Doctor began.

"The back lawn was much bigger than I thought it would be," he explained. "There's a small shed a ways from the house that the victim must have used for his personal man cave as well as for storage. There wasn't much to it, just an arm chair, a telly, a small table, a cooler, and gardening supplies all over the place. A real mess, no one's been there since the lad died."

"How could you tell?" Dean asked.

"There was an opened can of soda and an unfinished plate of chicken on the table. The chicken had a bit of dust on it, and I figured someone would have cleared the meal away if they had gone in there. The shed door was also locked, so that kind of tipped me off, too."

"Interesting," Sherlock said in a way that made Dean and the Doctor unsure if he really thought that was interesting or not. "Anything else?"

"Nothing much, except this." The Doctor fished around his pockets and pulled out a white business card. He passed it to Sherlock. "I didn't think much of it before, but I took it just in case it was important."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the card. "'Doctor Felicia Boiga,'" he read. "'Private practitioner.' Excellent work, Doctor."

"Let me see," Dean said, reaching for the card. Sherlock handed it over. Dean glanced down at the small rectangle. The blood in his face rushed back to his chest, and he reflexively kept his face neutral.

Apparently that wasn't good enough.

"Problem?" Sherlock asked.

Dean passed the card back. "Nope," he replied coolly. "But this is pretty important, Doc. I'm thinking the vic went to the same doctor every time he got the snot beat out of him, so we should check this place out."

"Will we have time?" the Doctor asked. "Agent Harris seems very strict about his deadlines, and we still need to check out where the body was found."

"Yeah, I know," Dean huffed. "We talked about that while you were gone. How about I drop you guys off at the abandoned warehouse, I go scope out the doctor's office, and then I come back for you in a few hours?"

The Doctor dismissed the idea immediately. "We can't split up, remember?"

"Ya know, this whole go-with-what-the-secret-agency-tells-us to do thing is really starting to get on my nerves."

"There's a reason for it, you know," the Doctor said. "What if something happens to one of us and the others can't get there in time?"

"Yeah, well, that's the problem of whoever is dumb enough to get in trouble," Dean said without thinking. The Doctor fell quiet. Dean immediately regretted his words but he was in too much of a mood to apologize. Sherlock eyed the hunter expressionlessly but said nothing.

After a few moments of quiet Dean took a deep breath and said, "We'll check out the building tonight, find out what we can, and then head to the motel for some shut eye, and in the morning we'll swing by the doctor's office. If we run into overtime, we'll radio the jet and let them know we'll be running a bit late. How does that sound?"

"Very well," Sherlock said.

"We better hurry then," the Doctor said.

The rest of the ride was spent in total silence. Dean didn't even think to turn on the radio.

* * *

Nothing but a dull, obligatory murmur came from the EMF detector. Dean angrily shut the device off and shoved it in his pocket.

The Doctor looked about the building's expansive interior. Much of the size was on account of the collapsed second floor, the rest from the lack of furniture in the room. He wasn't entirely sure what the old building used to be, but it gave off a funny smell.

Sherlock rose from where he crouched by the white chalk outline of where Keatley's body was found. "Multiple signs of forced entry into a condemned building," he said. "Footprints in the dirt of varying size, style, and prominence as well as discarded rubbish and graffiti suggest others frequent this place." He turned to Dean and the Doctor. "Considering Mr. Keatley's habits, I would say this is a meeting spot for those in the drug business."

"Yeaaah, I could've told you that," Dean said and folded his arms. "What else you got?"

Sherlock pointed to spots on the floor. "It was raining the night of the murder," he continued, "judging by the dirt—formerly mud—on the footprints."

"Great." Dean deadpanned. "Saved me the trouble of pulling up the weather app on my phone. Anything _useful_?"

A nerve twitched in the detective's upper lip. "Only two sets of footprints have that kind of dirt on them; the first set—Keatley—paced nervously for a while, most likely in anticipation for the second set—male, by the looks of it—to arrive."

This time Dean said nothing. The Doctor paused his looking around to listen to what the consulting detective had to say.

"The two stop here," Sherlock waved his hand over an area in the middle of the room. "They talk for a bit about something that makes the victim uncomfortable judging by the way his prints seem to shuffle in place, and then . . . ." Trailing off into the complex network of his mind, Sherlock studied the multitude of spots and smudges on the floor. Dean cocked an eyebrow.

". . . and then . . . ?" he said expectantly.

Sherlock ignored him. Scattered around where the victim stood were small flecks of dried blood; roughly two paces behind, a messy smear of more dried blood leading to the gory stain marked by chalk. Aside from the vandalism and chalk outline, the walls and floor were unmarred. But the second set of footprints . . .

"And then," said Sherlock, "the other man pounced."

Dean and the Doctor stared at him. Sherlock stared back.

"He . . . pounced?" The Doctor asked.

"Like a tiger?" Dean asked.

With all the theatrical authority of a Broadway actor, Sherlock jabbed a finger down at the floor. "Neither set of prints move from their respective spots," he proclaimed, "yet the victim's body is found two meters away. Blood near the original location, splattered _away _from the end location, and a bloody smear in between. He was thrown back, but by what?" Sherlock pointed around the room. "None of the broken windows or other such exterior openings provide good vantage points for a shot from a weapon strong enough to send a man flying off his feet and land where he did. A device attached to the ceiling, then?" Sherlock gestured upward. "The unbroken sections of floor on the level above us are too narrow for someone to stand on, let alone set up and/or trigger a device that would knock back a man. Any such device would be too conspicuous; the victim would've seen it and, suspicious, left the premises." He dropped his arms and looked to his companions. "That leaves our mysterious second person, who was without a doubt the murderer. He didn't fire a weapon of any kind at the victim because we didn't see any such markings on the corpse back at the morgue. That leaves one possible option—he pounced."

Without waiting for the others to reply, Sherlock spun on his heel with a dramatic flourish of his coat and strode over to the chalk outline. "Ah! Further proof!" he exclaimed, gesturing in a wide sweeping motion beyond the stain. "The murderer's footprints leading _away _from the crime scene. Ohhhh, he's a quick one! Quick enough to lunge at his victim with hardly a smudge of the footprint, very impressive."

"Is it just me," the Doctor muttered to Dean, "or is he _really_ excited about violent murder?"

"Here's the smudge S.H.I.E.L.D.'s gotten itself all worked up over," Sherlock mused, completely oblivious to their comments. "Much clearer up close, very distinct from the rest of the shapes, but still unrecognizable. Hold on."

Suddenly Sherlock crouched down and put his face only inches from the floor, balancing only on the balls of his feet and the pads of his fingers to avoid touching the blood stains. The two spectators watching with mix feelings of creeped-out and fascination as the detective scanned the floor like some kind of lizard looking for its prey. The way he moved his head and body reminded Dean of the Komodo dragons he saw one time at the zoo.

A smile stretched across the detective's face, reinforcing the reptile idea.

"There was a third person," Sherlock rumbled as he slowly rose and leaned back on the balls of his feet. "There; you see? Another set of footprints in the blood, much smaller and narrower than the other two. She came in after the victim was killed. Clever, that one; she took the precaution of not tracking mud into the building and avoided the dirtier parts of the floor as not to leave tracks. She did, however, make the mistake of stepping into a puddle of the victim's blood when she went to stand next to him for whatever reason. But that's it. Just this print here, and this cluster of prints where she turned about after noticing the blood on her shoes and cleaned it off. One so clever as to know to cover her tracks must be an accomplice.

"But where did she come from? Where did she go?"

Quiet followed in the wake of Sherlock's rapid-fire deduction. Outside, the sun was finishing up its daily routine, casting long black shadows across the floor. Somewhere overhead, a bird fluttered from its roost and flew out a broken window.

Dean exhaled slowly and said, "Well, we'll be sure to ask Cotton-Eye Joe if we ever catch him."

The Doctor frowned. "Him? Didn't Sherlock say it was a woman?"

With a longsuffering sigh, Dean clapped the Time Lord on the shoulder and said, "You've got a lot to learn, Doc. Come on, there's nothing else here to look at. Let's get outta here so I can get my four hours before we gotta leave."

* * *

That night, a moon bright and round like a polished platter shone high over Boulder. No clouds contested its radiance. It watched over Boulder with disinterest, only caring a fleeting glance down at an ebony form as it slipped into a shaded parking lot miles below. Its equally-polished surface mirrored the silver light, a reflection of a reflection, before it passed under the cover of trees. Reflection lost, the moon turned its gaze elsewhere.

Even with the brightness to give him away, breaking into the office of Dr. Felicia Boiga was almost too easy. The lock gave effortlessly under Dean's practiced hands, and no alarms went off when he stole inside. The inside was dark with just enough moonlight to keep him from bumping into furniture. Dean pulled out the EMF detector. The obligatory red light lit up, but that was all. Frustrated, Dean shoved the device back in his pocket, clicked on his flashlight and scanned the room. The office space was like any other he's broken into with tastefully simple furniture, landscape paintings on the walls, and those ridiculously tall potted plants.

Leaving as little trace of his presence as possible, Dean searched every nook and cranny in the office. No crevice between cabinets was left unexamined, no dark corner uninvestigated, no garbage bin unrummaged-through. Every few feet the EMF detector was called upon, but it never rose above a quiet crackle.

After the sixth or seventh failed try, Dean was ready to explode. Too long. He waited too long to come back and now there was nothing left. Dean forced himself to take a deep, relaxing breath like Sam taught him the one time he agreed to do yoga together. He still had one place left to check: a space tucked away in the back, open but hidden from anyone standing in the lounge.

He assumed this space was a break room of sorts since it had a fridge and vending machine, but it was more of a dead-ended hallway than a room and there was only enough space for a handful of adults to stand around in. The cabinets were bare except one, which held Styrofoam cups, paper towels, and typical doctor stuff like Q-tips and Popsicle sticks.

Dean opened the fridge. Bottled water, three containers of unidentifiable contents, and some fruit. He closed the fridge in disgust.

There was one thing left to do. Dean took out the EMF detector. Then, with the tiniest hints of hesitation, he flipped the switch.

The machine screamed. Dean almost dropped the thing; it fumbled in his hand a bit before he shut it off.

The silence that followed was deafening. Dean's heart jackhammered against his ribcage, and he quickly looked around. He was still alone.

A grin pulled at his face. So he wasn't too late after all.

Hunter's instinct told him that the source of the crazy EMF was behind the door hiding in the darkest part of the break room.

EMPLOYEES ONLY, the door declared.

_Not today_, Dean replied.

The hunter cautiously approached the door. His hand reached out, very carefully inching closer and closer to the doorknob until it's cool, smooth surface was a mere inch from his fingertips—

"Sneaking around like a criminal, aren't we, Mr. Winchester?"

Dean spun around. "You son of a bitch," he growled. "How did you—"

"Know you were going to sneak out while we slept and come here?" Sherlock asked, stepping out of the shadows, Doctor at his side. "Wasn't difficult. You're very easy to read, I'm afraid."

"Your engine's also quite loud," said the Doctor. "You might want to get it checked."

"It's an American thing."

"Is that right?"

"How did you get here without a car?" Dean demanded.

"Cab," they said in unison. "Nice chap, the driver," Sherlock added. "He was very understanding of our time-sensitivity. But enough about that—you have some explaining to do, Mr. Winchester, so I suggest you get to it."

Dean's eyes flicked between the Doctor's expectant face and Sherlock's. A knot formed in his gut. _Quick, brain, think of a lie. Any lie, as long as it's convincing._

"I . . . uh . . . ."

Sherlock sighed. "Don't waste your time lying. You've been on edge since we first saw the Welcome to Boulder sign. I know you've been here before, and I'm guessing this has to do with your brother's disappearance. Any information you have could be relevant to the case, so there's no point in hiding—"

"No point in _hiding_?" Dean snapped. "Are you _kidding _me?! With your arrogant ass waiting in the wings to blow off everything I say, you little—"

"What he's trying to say," the Doctor interjected calmly, "is that it's not easy being upfront with someone who doesn't listen, Sherlock."

Sherlock squared his jaw.

"Both of you," continued the Doctor. "We're supposed to be a team. Like it or not, we're stuck together and every moment we waste bickering or . . . not being a team, the enemy wins. So for once, let's get along for at least ten minutes so we can make a LITTLE progress. Dean, please say what you need to say."

Sherlock opened his mouth to speak.

"Sherlock, keep your big trap shut and let the man speak or so help me I'll set your hair on fire."

Sherlock quickly closed his mouth.

Dean almost smirked. "Thanks, Doc," he said then got serious. "I don't wanna waste too much time, so I'll keep it quick. A few weeks back, my brother, Sam, and I got a call from another hunter. Machinery in Boulder was going nuts, shutting off randomly, causing a few minor accidents, but just in specific areas around town. Didn't seem like anything _too_ crazy at the time—just going off what the hunter said, it was probably a poltergeist or a vengeful spirit or something."

Sherlock decided not to ask what was considered "too crazy".

"We did some poking around," Dean continued, folding his arms, "and the whole mess pointed to a vengeful spirit. There was only one problem. . . ."


	6. Two Weeks Ago

**Two Weeks Ago . . .**

* * *

Sam exhaled loudly and fell back into the slightly-uncomfortable chair.

"Are you kidding me?" Dean said as he walked out of the kitchen area. Steam rose from the microwaved takeout box in his hand. "What's it been, five hours since you started?"

"Yep," Sam sighed, "and still nothing. No major accidents, no murders, and no sudden deaths anywhere near these places in the past fifty years. The only thing that comes close is a guy who died five miles from the amusement park in '87, but he was cremated and as far as I can tell, he has no surviving family members."

Whatever greasy thing Dean was eating this time filled the room with a thick stench the moment he opened the takeout box. Sam tried to ignore it.

"Well that sucks," said Dean. "So we got perfectly good rides shuttin' down outta the blue, all of which sittin' smack dab in the center of a fifty-foot dead zone, three people walking away with cuts and bruises because of it, and enough EMF to light a Christmas tree, but no ghost! No murders, no violent deaths. What is this world coming to, Sammy?"

"We could look again for hex bags."

Dean groaned. "We already wasted two whole days looking and all we have to show for it is that new carnie smell and this cut on my hand." Dean frowned at his palm. "How'd that happen?"

"I don't get it." Sam palmed his tired eyes. "The only possible explanation is a ghost, but I can't find anything suspicious."

Dean sighed and sat down in front of Sam. "Life is so much easier when you can pin your problems on brutal murder," he stated.

Terrible as it sounds, Dean had a point. After discovering heaven and hell, the whole hunting thing's gotten way more complicated—so much so the boys are actually relieved, if not grateful, if a case turns out to be a simple haunting.

"Mm," said Dean around the chicken wing he was picking clean, "how'd that guy die?"

"Which guy?"

"The guy from '87."

"George Milton? Heart attack. He was working on a car at the time."

Dean tossed the bone onto the growing pile in the box's lid. "Then I guess we gotta check him out."

Sam arched an eyebrow at him from over the laptop. "Are you serious?"

"You got any other ideas? He's the only lead we have. Maybe he had a crappy life and he's taking it out on kids at amusement parks."

"But he was cremated," Sam protested. "There's no body to keep him he—" Realization struck. "His car!"

"There ya go." Dean waggled a nibbled-on chicken leg at him. "Sometimes it helps to think for a second, little brother."

Sam shot him a look then pulled up a new page on his laptop. "It's a bit of a stretch. I mean, the family probably sold it after he died and whoever bought it might've sold it to someone else, provided it even worked at that point. That car could be rusting in pieces under a junk pile for all we know."

"You got any other ideas?" Dean asked crossly.

Sam didn't respond, already engrossed in the task at hand. While he searched the license plate on the deceased's car, Dean finished his snack and noisily licked his fingers clean.

_Slurp, slurp. Smack._

Sam pursed his lips.

_Slurp, slurp. Smack._

Sam scratched his head.

_Slurp, slurp._

Sam ground his teeth.

_Smack._

"Would you knock it off?" Sam snapped.

Dean looked up with the pad of his thumb still in his mouth.

"Why?"

"'Cuz it's disgusting."

Dean rolled his eyes, wiped his hands on his shirt, and stood up.

"Alright," Sam said. "I've got something. The car _was_ sold not too long after he died, to a guy named Buford Buchanan."

"Where is he now?"

Sam typed something into the computer.

"Here in Boulder," he said. "He's got a house not too far away."

"Great." Dean grabbed his keys. "I'm gonna go see if the car is still in the driveway."

"I'm not going with you?"

"No. Stay here and dig up some more dirt on that Milton guy. See if he really is haunting the place."

"Alright," Sam said. "Just be careful out there."

Dean waved a hand over his shoulder as his only farewell before closing the door behind him.

* * *

"After Dean left," Sam explained to the group, "I checked out the local archives to see if they would be more helpful."

"Were they?" Rose asked.

Sam sighed.

* * *

"This is the last box," said the assistant librarian and dropped her burden on the table beside Sam. Sam arched an eyebrow.

"That's it?" he asked.

"I just brought out over a century's worth of newspapers and you say, 'That's it?'" she scoffed incredulously. "So what're you looking for?"

"Anything weird," Sam replied simply, pulling a box closer. Of all the assistants in the library, he had to get the nosy one. Maybe she'll take a hint.

No such luck.

"That narrows it down." She slid into the seat in front of him. "Is there anything I can do to help? I'm good with stuff like this. You know, old stuff. Stuff from the past."

"Ah, no. I can take care of it myself, thanks." He smiled politely at her.

She shrugged. There was a little mole on the left corner of her mouth that moved when she talked, which was too often for Sam's liking.

"I find this kind of thing fascinating," she went on while he opened the box. "That's why I took the job. The librarians here don't like working the archives 'cuz it's dusty and smelly, so it's always the assistants that get stuck with it. But I don't mind. I like history."

"Mm hm." Sam opened the box and peered inside with a frown. Of all the boxes, this held the least. "Are you sure this is it?" he asked, closing the box.

"Uh huh. I heard a bunch of stuff was destroyed in a fire or something a while back. It was before the archives were kept here."

"When was this?" Sam asked, alert now.

The assistant waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, like fifty years or so. Or was it twenty?"

"That's a big difference."

"Mmm. . . ." She put her head in one hand and watched him look through the newspapers. "What did you say you were looking for?"

"I didn't."

"I can help, you know. I know lots of things."

Sam sighed. "Alright, fine. What do you know about a George Milton? He died in 1987."

The woman's blue eyes lit up. "George Randolph Milton. Died of a heart attack while he was working on his 1984 Dodge Diplomat. Or was it 1980? His obituary is in that." She pointed to one of the boxes. "He was married with two kids. Or was it three?"

"What was he like?" Sam asked.

The woman shrugged. "Normal, I guess," she said. "Or at least normal enough to keep him out of the paper. His obituary is the only thing in there. Oh, and the ad for his Dodge."

Sam chewed the inside of his cheek for a second then asked, "Was there anything . . . unusual reported shortly before or shortly after his death?"

"Mmmm. . . ." She scratched her blond head. "Not that I can think of." Just then an older librarian poked her head around a shelf and asked for a hand. Giving the librarian a nod, the woman stood and said, "Here, why don't you give me your name and number and I'll call you if I remember something?"

"Couldn't hurt." Sam jotted down one of his multiple cell numbers, and the paper disappeared into the woman's pocket. Flashing a winning smile, the assistant left Sam to his work. Sam smiled a polite smile of his own, which vanished as soon as she was gone. He pulled out a newspaper from the box and got to skimming.

* * *

"So while Sam was doing his nerd thing," said Dean, "I went to check out Buchanan. Neither he or the car was home, and his wife said that he was at work in Denver. That was about thirty minutes away so I figured I could run out there, find this Buchanan guy, and get back before Sam finished."

Sherlock and the Doctor listened to Dean's story intently, Doctor from his seat on a rolling desk chair, Sherlock from where he stood beside the Doctor. Both had their arms folded. Dean continued, "I drove out to the place where Buchanan was _supposed _to be, but he wasn't there. I asked around—apparently the guy wasn't scheduled to go in that day, and no one knew where he could be."

"Where was he, then?" asked the Doctor.

* * *

"Hey, it's me," Dean said after the beep. "I'm out in Denver looking for Buchanan, in case you were wondering. His wife said he's here on business, but no one I talk to has seen or heard from him because—get this—he was fired several months ago. I'm on my way back. Hope you found something 'cuz I got nothin'."

He hung up and pocketed his cell. Well this sucked. He checked his watch. Jeez, one o'clock already? Dean quickly slid into the seat of the Impala. The engine roared to life then settled into a contented purr. _Maybe I can pick up a burger real quick, _Dean thought to himself. _Yeah, that'll work._

Two long lines and a really bad accident later, Dean irritably bit into his burger, ignoring the 2:27 on his watch as he drove one-handedly towards Boulder. Sam hadn't returned his call, which wasn't surprising.

It was in that moment Dean's cell rang. Startled, Dean crammed what was left of his burger into his mouth and fumbled for his phone.

"E'wo?" he said.

"Um, hi, is this Dean Winchester?" a woman's voice asked.

Dean swallowed, nearly choking, and coughed, "Who's asking?"

"I'd rather not say my name," she said shyly. "I could get into real trouble for this. But I'm a friend of Tanner's, and he told me that I could call you about Buford Buchanan."

Tanner was the hunter that originally told the Winchesters of the strange things going on in Boulder. Dean scowled. "How do you know about Buchanan?"

"Sam called Tanner while we were at lunch, and Tanner happened to mention it to me."

"How convenient," Dean muttered, but he sat up in his seat. "So do you know the guy?"

"Sort of. I work at a bar out in Colorado City. A few months ago—I think, like, two or three—Buford got fired, but he couldn't bring himself to tell his wife about it."

_That checks out,_ thought Dean as he pulled over and cut the engine.

"Ever since," she continued, "he would drive down out to the bar I work at and gamble. He's pretty good—he usually walks away with enough money to hold him and his family over until his next visit."

"Great," Dean said. "But how do you know all this?"

"Because he told me," the woman sniffed. "He always ended up coming during my shift, so we talked a lot."

"So you think he's going to be there?"

"I _know _he's going to be there."

She then gave Dean the address to the bar, which he jotted down on an old receipt, and hung up. Dean immediately punched in the address into his phone. About two hours from where he was. Dean thought about this for a moment. He had already been gone for, what, two hours? Two hours there, two hours back, and who knows how long it'll take to locate Buchanan and get anything useful out of him—Dean might not be back until late. He should go back for Sam. That would be a good idea.

But then he thought back to this morning and grimaced. He didn't really feel like dealing with pissy-Sam, and besides, Sammy's a big boy. He could handle himself for a few hours.

Dean picked up his phone again and dialed. "Change of plans," Dean said to the answering machine. "Just got an anonymous call from a friend of Tanner saying that Buchanan's at a bar in Colorado City. I won't be back until late, so you just get some sleep. I'll call if anything interesting happens."

He hung up and, tossing the phone onto the passenger seat, Dean turned the Impala around and made for Colorado City.

* * *

"I didn't get out until dark," Sam said. "By then I was so tired and I just wasted an entire day reading that I decided to just go back to my room and turn in early. When I got back, I noticed Dean called a few hours earlier, which was weird because my phone never went off in the library."

* * *

"_. . . sleep. I'll call if anything interesting happens."_

Sam deleted the message and tossed the phone onto the bed beside him. _So much for that,_ he thought bitterly. Hopefully something interesting _does _happen, otherwise—Sam hated to think it—they might have to drop this case.

_But none of it makes sense! _Sam thought. _The accidents, the EMF, the _exact_ radius all this is going on in—there's no way this is coincidental. _

The manager of the park even said that they've only had one accident in all of the time the park's been in operation, and now all of a sudden everything that can go wrong goes wrong on a daily basis. It won't be long now until something serious happens. . . .

Sam's mind wandered back to Dean's message. An anonymous tip? From a friend of Tanner? He didn't even know Tanner HAD friends that weren't hunters, and even then the term was a stretch. Something didn't sit right with Sam. He reached for the phone and stopped.

The message came in a few hours ago. Dean would already be in Colorado City by now. There's little chance that Dean would turn around and come back just because Sam had a bad feeling, if he even picked up the phone at all considering he would be in the middle of getting information from Buchanan.

_If he's even there, _whispered in the back of Sam's mind.

But Dean could take care of himself—this wasn't his first case, and he certainly wasn't a stranger to bar life.

Still . . .

Sam's hand darted for the phone just as it went off. He answered in a heartbeat.

"Dean, listen," he said quickly but was interrupted.

"Is this Sam Winchester?"

Sam froze. The voice was gruff, male.

"Who is this?"

"My name's not important, but one of the ladies at the library said that you were the person to go to for this."

"And that would be . . . ?"

"I'm a friend of Buford Buchanan. A few weeks ago he started acting . . . weird. At first I thought it was because he got laid off, but . . ."'

"Weird?" Sam asked. "Weird how?"

"He was all twitchy and suspicious. He would yell at people for stupid stuff, which is weird because he's pretty calm, and he started wearing sweaters even in the hottest part of the day. Anyway, his wife made him go see a doctor about it, and I was thinking that the doctor would know something."

A thrill shot threw Sam's heart. This was it! A legitimate lead!

"Her name is Dr. Felicia Boiga," the man continued. Sam immediately searched her on the internet. "If you swing by her office in the morning and show her your badge, I'm sure she'd be willing to talk."

Wait, his badge? Sam didn't remember using his FBI cover, not with the library assistant. The excitement dissipated into suspicion. Mumbling a thanks to the man, Sam hung up and looked at his computer screen. Boiga was a legitimate private practitioner, that much was true. But this whole situation . . . . He should wait until Dean returned. Yeah, that would be a good idea.

Sam checked the time.

At this rate, Dean wouldn't be back for a while, possibly just before sunrise. Naturally they weren't going to _ask_ for confidential medical information—to non-hunters, Buchanan's strange behavior had nothing to do with the strangeness at the amusement park, so the brothers would need a warrant. No, they would have to break in, and they would have to break in tonight before the man on the phone could let Dr. Boiga know they were coming.

Sam closed his laptop. This wasn't his first case, either. He could do this on his own; it'd be easy. He'd go in, check the medical records Boiga had on file, and then when Dean got back, they could finally wrap up this case. Leaping from the bed, Sam grabbed the wallet sitting on the nightstand, slung on his jacket, and phoned a cab as he walked out the door.

* * *

Dean swallowed and set the empty glass down on the counter.

"Another?" asked the bartender.

"Sure," Dean replied. "Hey, I got a question for you."

"Go ahead."

"Are you the only one on this shift? Isn't there a girl that works here?"

The bartender smirked. "Am I not pretty enough for you, sir?" he joked.

"I'm sure you got all the ladies fallin' around you," Dean quipped back. "I'm asking 'cuz a friend of mine said she worked this shift, and I wanted to meet her here."

"I see." The bartender pulled a glass from under the counter and set it before Dean. "I hate to break it to you, but I think you've been duped. It's just me here most weeknights."

Dean swore inwardly but kept his voice neutral. "Damn," he said. "Aw well. She was a bit of a floozy anyway."

The bartender chuckled and poured Dean his drink. Dean took a swallow and, sighing contentedly, asked, "So do you know of a Buford Buchanan? I heard he comes around here a lot."

"Another friend of yours?"

"Sorta."

"Sorry, but I don't really know the names of most of our patrons. I just started here a few nights ago."

_Of course._ Dean thanked him, and the bartender went to take a blond woman's order. He glanced at the time and flinched. How the hell did he blow three hours here?! Maybe the clock was wrong. Yeah, that had to be it.

Either way, it was time to go. Dean was getting nothing here, and the day was starting to catch up to him. He paid, downed the last of his drink, and left with a sudden need to get back to the motel as quick as possible.

Not once on the two-and-a-half car ride back did he notice his phone flashing on the seat beside him.

* * *

"Hey Dean," Sam said after the beep as he watched the cab drive off, "it's Sam. I just got a call from a guy who says he knows Buchanan. Apparently Buchanan's been acting weird for a few weeks now and he went to see a Dr. Felicia Boiga. The files she has on him might explain why the park's been acting crazy. I'm on my way to her office now. Stay safe, and I'll talk to you later."

With that, Sam tucked the phone away and quickly walked across three parking lots and through some bushes to reach the Boiga's office. All of the lights were off, and only a maintenance truck sat in the parking lot. Stealing a few glances around, Sam quickly got to work on the lock. Luckily the trees and awning cast just the right shadow to hide him until the tumblers fell into place. Sam stowed away his picks and pushed the door open.

* * *

The needle on the speedometer impatiently dipped little by little over the speed limit. Dean tried to remain calm. Sam can take care of himself, he reasoned. Just because he left him alone for such a long time, doesn't mean something bad happened. Well, usually it doesn't.

_Sam's fine. He's probably back at the motel already, sleeping like an angel. A really tall, really nerdy angel with—_

"DEAN!"

Dean swore violently and slammed his foot on the brakes. The Impala screeched to a halt, sending every loose object flying forward. Dean fell back with a loud _oof!_ and whirled around in his seat.

"What the hell, Cas?!" he demanded.

"There's no time to explain," said the angel, leaning forward urgently. "Something bad's about to happen. Sam's in danger!"

"What are you talking about? What's going to happen?!"

"You need to hurry back," Castiel continued quickly. "There's not much time. I'm going on ahead to try and stop Sam, but right now you need to get moving!"

Knowing what was about to happen next, Dean's hand snatched out to grab at the angel's coat but was too slow. Castiel vanished just as quickly as he came, leaving Dean to his bewilderment and dread. Only three words rang in Dean's mind:

_Sam's in danger._

The Impala roared to life and in seconds was tearing down the highway, heading towards Boulder.

* * *

It didn't take long for Sam to find what he was looking for. Buford Buchanan did, in fact, come to Dr. Boiga, but not for unexplainable behavior. Sam slammed the file shut and stuffed it back into the file cabinet.

Sinus infection. That's why Buchanan came here; he had a minor sinus infection, for which Boiga prescribed an antibiotic. There was no mention of anything unusual. Slamming the drawer shut, Sam sat down and put his aching head in his hands. Well this was a complete waste of time. Not just breaking into the office, the whole case was a waste. Strange things happening, people getting hurt, but no explanation. It just happens.

. . . . Maybe the whole hunting thing in general was a big waste of time, too. Sam's head popped up in surprise. Where did that come from? The very thought was almost blasphemy. Of course the family business meant something—look at all the people they saved!

_Yeah, well, look at all the people that died anyway. . . ._

Sam shook his head and rose to his feet. He didn't like where this dark road was leading, and now was as bad a time as every to venture down it. His head hurt. He needed to get out of this building before he got caught.

In two strides, Sam crossed the room. As he reached for the doorknob, something stopped him. He frowned and leaned in to give the handle a better look. It shown from what little light that filtered into the room, but otherwise it was just a doorknob. But wait, what was that? Sam leaned in a little closer. There was a shadow on the knob, a dark speck that sort of resembled . . .

Sam jerked away and whirled around, swinging his fists. He struck at open air. Sam looked around wildly. He could've swore he saw a monster try to sneak up on him. Heart beating like mad and breath coming out in ragged gasps, Sam spun around and flung the door wide open.

He screamed.

Waiting for him on the other side, pale form cutting through the gloom, eyes wide and vacant, and skin drawn tight across a skeletal face was Mary Winchester.

"_You're not supposed to be here, Sammy," _she intoned in a hollow whisper. _"You're not supposed to be here. . . ."_

"Get away," he quavered, taking several steps back. "You're dead. We exorcised you years ago!"

"_That wasn't very nice. . . . Don't you love your mother?"_

The specter reached out a thin, bony hand. Sam jumped back, slamming bodily into a cabinet behind him. Pain shot across his back, and the specter disappeared.

Sam fought for his breath as he stared at where his mother once stood, the space made darker now that the pale was gone.

_I need to get out of here,_ he thought finally and rushed through the open door. The hallway was darker, with just enough light to make out some cabinets and a vending machine. Sam bolted past that and slowed to a stop when he reached the waiting room. A faint whispering tickled his ear, but he didn't understand what it was saying. The throbbing in his head grew more painful, and the floor started to dip and sway under his feet. Forms and shadows grew from out of the walls and reached out towards him.

Sam cried out and flailed wildly. Once his hand connected with something and pain stabbed his wrist.

"_Saaammyyyy. . . ." _something crooned.

"Stay back!" he bellowed.

"_Welcome back, Sammy. Back where you belong. . . ."_

Icy fear shot through his heart.

_That voice. . . ._

"Impossible," he said. "Dean and I locked you away! You're in hell!"

It giggled. _"You're right, Sammy. And so are you."_

Unseen chains rattled and screeched in his ears, and just beyond that the whispering intensified. No, this wasn't real. This _couldn't _be real. Walls of flame blazed just inches from his skin, he could feel it, but all he saw were pulses of living darkness.

"No," he whispered hoarsely. "NO!"

"_Welcome back, Sammy. Now we GOTCHA!"_

A hand shot out of the dark and grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around.

Sam screamed and flung himself backwards. One of the writhing shadows had solidified into a humanoid shape and now reached for him with a clawed hand.

"Sam!" the shadow barked.

"Get away!" Sam swung with his uninjured fist. The shadow caught the blow easily.

"Sam, stop! It's me, Castiel."

Castiel? Sam lowered his hand and stared at the figure in front of him. It looked like Castiel, and the hand still gripping his closed fist felt solid enough. Sam relaxed. In the dark, the angel had seemed like another specter, but this was definitely—

"Cas," breathed Sam, relieved. "What are you doing here?"

"We need to get out of here," the angel said. "Something bad is about to happen."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. All I know is that there's a disturbance in Heaven. Something bad is coming, something that could destroy every—"

Suddenly the angel collapsed. Sam shouted and reached to grab him when something large and heavy slammed into the back of his head. He was out before his head even hit the ground.

* * *

"Sam wasn't at the motel when I got back," Dean said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I went back out to the car to go look for him when I noticed I had a voicemail. It was Sam saying that we went to check out a doctor named Felicia Boiga. I went there as quick as I could, but a cop caught me trying to break in. I got off pretending to be drunk and he 'helped' me back to my room. I went back out in the morning and one of the front-desk people let me in when I told them that a friend's kid left something behind the day before.

"Nothin'. Absolutely nothin'. No sign of a break-in or of a struggle. It's like Sam wasn't even there. I tried calling out to Cas, but he wouldn't answer me. It's like they fell off the face of the earth."

* * *

"And then I woke up here," Sam finished. "I didn't see any of the goop that you mentioned, but it's the only explanation for what happened."

Rose mulled over his story in silence. John palmed his eyes. "This is madness," he said. "Absolute madness. Aliens, angels. . . ."

"I know it's a lot to take in," Cas said. "Not many people believe such things exist. You're strong for not fainting yet. Most do."

"If you didn't have an encounter with one of these aliens," Sam said, "then how were you taken?"

"How was I taken?" John dropped his hands. "Not in nearly an exciting way as you three. Sherlock and I just wrapped up a case, I was leaving my flat to meet my wife for lunch when all of a sudden this black car drives up and I'm told to get in."

"And you just went in?" Rose asked incredulously.

"They threatened to kill me," he said. "I thought it was Mycroft!"

"Who?"

"Never mind," John huffed dismissively. "The point is they drove way out of London until they reached countryside and _then _decided to knock me out. I didn't wake up until I heard those two shuffling about."

"Who was in the car with you?" asked Sam.

"Two men, I think. They were wearing identical outfits and caps, and I couldn't see their faces. They never said a word, which was another reason why I thought it was Mycroft."

"You need new friends," Cas commented.

"Mycroft isn't exactly a friend."

* * *

Sherlock and the Doctor were quiet. Dean waited semi-patiently for them to say something. Still in his hand was the EMF detector, which he fiddled with.

"So this angel, this . . . Castiel," the Doctor began. "What kind of angel is he?"

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Seriously?" he said. "After all that, THAT'S your first question?"

"It's important!" the Doctor said defensively.

"I don't know! The normal kind!"

"He doesn't turn you into stone when you're not looking, does he?"

"Wha—no!"

"Oh, ok."

Dean gave him the strongest WTF face in his repertoire.

Sherlock lifted a hand. "May I speak now?"

With a huff, Dean gestured for him to go ahead.

"Thank you. First of all, I would like to say that I completely believe you—"

"That's a first," the Doctor said in disbelief.

"—with the exception of that 'angel' bit."

"There it is," Dean grumbled.

"However," Sherlock stressed the word, "considering that it doesn't interfere with the believability of the rest of your story, I will disregard it for now and instead focus on more important things."

_Close enough, _Dean and the Doctor thought.

"If what you say is true, then you and your brother were lured into a trap by that Tanner fellow."

"Oh no," Dean said. "Tanner 'n' me go way back. Hunter's don't turn on other hunters like that, especially after that other hunter's saved the first hunter's skin so many times."

"That may be true," the Doctor said, "but Sherlock has a point. He was the one that told you about Boulder to begin with."

"Yeah, but—"

"If he's a hunter," Sherlock countered, "then why couldn't he have investigated the disturbances himself?"

"Tanner ain't the best at what he does, ok?" Dean said angrily. "He's good for small stuff, like exorcisms and séances. He's in the business 'cuz of his uncle, and once you're in, you're in for life. So he when he got wind of something potentially witchy or demony, he called me and Sam."

"Then what of his friend?" asked Sherlock. "The one on the phone who claimed to know him."

"I don't know." Dean deflated a bit. "Even to me that was strange considering Tanner's such a loner. But what choice did I have? It was the only lead we had at the time and I had to check it out just in case it led to anything."

Sherlock got quiet for a moment. Outside, Dean could hear a groups of teens laughing. He tensed. It was highly unlikely they would look come into the building, but it was a reminder that they'd already wasted too much time.

"Very well then," Sherlock said finally and walked toward the hallway. "It seems there's only one thing left to do."

Exchanging a glance, Dean and the Doctor followed Sherlock. In long strides, the consulting detective quickly crossed the floor to the darkest part of the room, to the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Sherlock brushed open the door and stepped into inky darkness. There were no windows, so Dean clicked on a flashlight and shone it about the room. This was probably where Dr. Boiga kept all her official papers, because there was nothing in it except for a desk, a painting, and a bunch of file cabinets. Sherlock glanced around for a second before heading straight towards a cabinet.

"K's are over here," the Doctor said, pointing in a different direction.

"Just a moment," Sherlock muttered and skimmed his fingers over the labels. Finding the one he needed, the detective quickly pulled the drawer open and flipped through the files, making a small victorious noise when he found it.

"What is it?" Dean asked.

"It seems your mysterious caller did her research," Sherlock said. "Buford Buchanan does indeed come to this physician, but his last check-up was only for a mild sinus infection."

Dean swore. The Doctor opened a different, thicker file. "I found Jeremy Keatley," he said. "Massive! His record is just full of sprains, breaks, and overall nastiness."

"Let me see." Sherlock took the file and flipped through it. "Hmm . . . strange. In the thirty years Buchanan's come to this facility, five of them were under the consultation of Dr. Boiga. The years prior were done by someone named Dr. Price."

Dean folded his arms. "So?"

"Jeremy had been using this facility for almost ten years, and all that time he's been seeing Dr. Boiga."

". . . .Ok?"

"Maybe there were two physicians using the same building at one point," the Doctor said. "I didn't see Dr. Price's name on the sign outside, so he must have moved on. Why is that important?"

Sherlock didn't say anything. Truth be told, he had no idea why he noticed it—ok, he knew _why_, but he wasn't sure why alarms bells went off in his head when he did. All of a sudden this little bit of seemingly-inconsequential information bugged him, like his brain had an itch he couldn't scratch. Sherlock put the file back where it belonged.

"We need to leave," he said abruptly. "It must be close to the time when we're supposed to meet Agent Harris."

"Hang on," Dean said. "I need to do something first."

Sherlock and the Doctor watched as Dean flicked on the EMF detector. Suddenly electronic wailing pierced the heavy silence like a razor blade. Both men flinched, but Dean immediately started walking around the room, holding the detector out. There was no change at all until he approached the vent. The wailing turned to mad screeching, and all of the lights on the detector blazed.

"Shut that thing off!" hissed the Doctor, but it wasn't necessary. The EMF detector sparked in Dean's hand, causing him to drop it, and died. Dean gingerly picked it up and, satisfied it won't try to electrocute him again, stuffed the now-useless machine into his pocket. Then he squatted down and pried open the vent. Curious, Sherlock and the Doctor peered over his shoulder.

Dean shined his flashlight inside. Almost immediately he recoiled with a noise of disgust.

"What? What is it?" Sherlock asked eagerly. The Doctor stooped down to get a better look then immediately grabbed Dean and shoved Sherlock out of the way. "Get back!"

Dean yelped as he was dragged back by the collar, falling back on his behind. "What the hell, man?!"

"I was afraid of this," the Doctor said gravely. "Remember the stains on Keatley's fingers?"

"The electromagnetic jelly?"

The Doctor pointed into the vent. "That's it."

The three stared past his finger. Dripping in slow, thick globules was a dark grey slime that coated the entire inside of the vent. Most of it had already collected at the bottom and hardened into an even darker color with patches of milky white on the surface. The stuff oozed from a grotesque greying orange mass of flesh farther into the vent.

"That's not jelly," Dean said finally.

The Doctor swore violently, which surprised his partners almost as much as the slime did. "That's an Yllri," he explained. "It's been dead for a while, which is why the jelly hasn't had much of an effect on us. Otherwise this enough to make five men start seeing the purple monkeys."

"The . . . what?"

"Never mind that now. We need to report back to Agent Harris. _Now._"

* * *

**Happy Halloween! Hopefully you are all high enough on candy and Halloween cheer to forgive such a late update. **

**Thanks to everyone who still stuck around even though I am officially one of _those _authors. (You know the kind.) In addition to adding this chapter, I also edited the previous chapters for any really dumb mistakes (thanks to Beserked2 for pointing out the "private detective" thing. I wrote that chapter during one of the hiatuses and kinda forgot some things from the show.)**


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